Night Fighting

[Chappie]

Situation:

Axis defending(Reg)me, against Russian(Reg).

Night, rain and visibility down to 50 metres.

First contact, 1 of my sentry squads come up against almost a coy size force.

This skirmish result in the destruction of my squad but interestingly almost routing/breaking an entire Russian Rifle Coy.

My opponent was most distressed when further contact in another part of the front had the same result. Two Russian Coy routed or broken without any significant casualties.

So my question is:

Is moral a huge factor in night battles so as to cause such massive breaking of troops? Or is there another explanation.

[flamingknives]

In night battles, friendly fire directed at nearby target has a suppresive effect as if it was hostile.

[Tigrii]

AFAIK, night fights give morale a big negative modifier. Especially unseen shooters or big tanks cause troops to run off.

[Joachim]

The sound of distant shots is enough to make men take cover. Any moving shadow at max viz might be the enemy. Any contact will be on short ranges, with high firepower. Would you want to stroll along with a SMG-heavy squad 50m away? Even if they are friendlies - do they know you are friendly? It is just like moving along a city street... but without any support.

Attacking at 50m viz is tough. Same goes for your counterattacks - if you ever need any

Night fighting saw the highest kill stats for squads I ever had (vs the AI): 100+ per squad for a whole plt... and I started with 40% ammo. Night combat is deadly in CM... so the pixeltruppen should be afraid of it!

Gruß

Joachim

[Redwolf]

CM models huge morale difference in night-fighting.

I generally find it better to use fog when I want low visibility.

Reminds me to check whether they modified the extreme CMBB values for CMAK. Probably, most of the other nonsense has been tuned down as well.

[Slappy]

All true. What wasn't pointed out is that you probably don't want to bunch up a whole company at night. I know it's tempting to stick together when LOS is tight, but it can be deadly as your example demonstrates. Suppressive fire is much more effective at night, making proper scouting and spacing that much more important.

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Slappy:

All true. What wasn't pointed out is that you probably don't want to bunch up a whole company at night. I know it's tempting to stick together when LOS is tight, but it can be deadly as your example demonstrates. Suppressive fire is much more effective at night, making proper scouting and spacing that much more important.

Proper scouting in 50 viz is tough... expect your scouts getting slaughtered while overwatch is out of sight... or in the kill zone if too close. Results in dead scouts, sound contacts only, and if the defender withdraws quickly, you know nothing despite some dead scouts.

With proper spacing you lack the necessary attacker odds if the defender chooses to fight it out. If you converge piecemeal, you are dead.

Converging itself risks lots of friendly fire.

Best for attacking at night is to be the strategic attacker but tactical defender. IE try to break thru in a small corridor, leave listening posts on your trail, cutting the defenders forces in half and force the defender to move (best thru territory unobserved by him)... then he has exactly the same problems as you.

Gruß

Joachim

[Redwolf]

For tactics in low-visibility fighting read about sailing ship battle tactics.

[JasonC]

Use columns. The likely cause of the broken companies is uncontrolled friendly fire incidents, plus area suppression. It is a sign he wasn't spread out enough.

Deploy platoons with their squads 2 by 2, with 30m intervals or so. 3 squad platoons put the HQ at one of the back corners, otherwise it can go in the middle or in the middle of the back line. When the forward squads make contact, the rest of the platoon should still be out of LOS and out of suppression range. They will be able to maneuver against the threat.

Deploy a company by putting additional platoons behind the first, or one off to a side (trailing slightly optional), the rest behind those two. You will have options to go around an enemy, to hit him from multiple sides, to hit him frontally with multiple successive waves, etc.

Understand, if even one of your front squads shoots the enemy without being suppressed first itself, it is likely to put him "heads down" at least momentarily. Which frees others from suppression and gives maneuvering neighbors their chance to get into LOS distance without getting shot.

Once a few units are in LOS and shooting back themselves, the located enemy is as good as dead. He will be suppressed, and suppression turns into death (or rout) very quickly in such short range firefights. You don't need a massive front to bring this about.

[Carl Puppchen]

I know that we are talking about an infantry firefight but in close range night fighting light armor, even halftracks, become valuable. Light armor is usually decimated at range in a daylight battle but at night you come upon anti tank weapons and infantry at close range where your MG's have a strong suppressive effect. This is also usually the only way to bring MG's to bear as an attacker - if you drag them forward it slows everything down and they get killed if they are in the front line right away, before they even get setup. Another effective tactic is to throw low caliber artillery up ahead - a lot of the low skill (green, conscript) enemy will run away before you get there (it might land on you, though, because you are firing totally blind ). As attacker you can really take advantage of your ability to apply major force in a distinct spot because poor LOS limits the defenders' ability to move forces to the point of attack. Of course, this can be completely offset by running into MG and quick firing AA guns that just rout the attackers at close range. If the defender has mines / wire and weapons sited immediately behind them in a 50 foot firefight and you stumble around, you will be slaughtered.