Looking for urban warfare tips.

[Roast Duck]

A friend and I usually play mechanized infantry meeting engagements and the next one will be in a city and I was thinking of using a Ranger Battalion. I know Engineers would be nice and could take apart the town with flamethrowers and satchel charges. But the Rangers look like they could do a fine job, if the bazooka is any use as an antipersonnel weapon. The smaller six man Ranger squad should be a little harder to spot and the MGs have decent amount of ammo.Their mortars can be used to break up the German rushes from house to house. Also coming along for the fight are two Arty spotter teams with 4.2in. mortars, four tubes and eighty ammo apiece. I like how the mortars seem to deliver a more concentrated fire then the other types of artillery and the 4.2in. rounds can destroy a heavy building with some luck and a few hits.

So far the maps we have fought on have been covered with hills and forest. The bazooka teams have been effective up to 150 meters against stationary halftracks and AT guns. After that, they advance to support the infantry and almost always get cut down. Another time I had two bazooka teams in a wheat field firing on a German MG in a light building at about 80 meters. They seemed to suppress the MG and cover him in plaster but not much else. Has anyone had luck using the bazooka against infantry in buildings or in the open in CMAK? Any other hints for using Ranger units in an urban battle are welcome.

[junk2drive]

"Has anyone had luck using the bazooka against infantry in buildings or in the open in CMAK? "

Only in desperation, frustration, and then they die.

[YankeeDog]

Zooks do seem to be more effective at suppressing enemy in buildings then enemy in other kinds of cover, which would make sense given the mechanics of the weapon.

In my experience, the best way to use zooks against infantry in buildings is to try and find a location where the 'zook has LOS to the building, but not to the enemy squad specifically -- this prevents return fire. I have placed zooks right out in the street to fire, as long as I can find an angle that has LOS to the enemy-held building, but not the enemy themselves. Then, just set an area fire line into the building at a location as close to the enemy as possible -- close counts with HE!

Don't expect miracles. The zook won't usually kill or rout an enemy infantry unit by itself; it lacks the explosive power and the ammo depth. Insted, think of them as a substitute for light mortars in urban fighting. In natural terrain, light mortars can't destroy enemy infantry positions on their own, but they can help you gain fire ascendency in an infantry vs. infantry fight. However, light mortars are much less useful against enemy in buildings, (though as you note they can be used to try to interdict enemy transiting from building to building). So zooks take their place, giving you a little extra HE 'oomph', and helping you come out on top of the fire ascendency match.

So ideally, you use the zooks early on in the firefight -- they fire for a turn or so from a relatively safe location. Hopefully, this helps you get the enemy to go 'heads down'. Once you've gained fire ascendency, your MGs keep up the suppressive fire and your squads close in to finish the job.

Cheers,

YD

[Spears]

If you are fighting urban only way to go is engineers. There flames, Satchel charges deny close concentration of close support and are `****ing evil` sorry for my french. Sachels will collapse light buildings and flames will rout enemy before the infantry attacks. Zooks against infantry basically are a waste of ammo (not that it matters) and points when your men die, because they will. Quickly

[ November 14, 2004, 05:12 PM: Message edited by: Spears ]

[securityguard]

Abuse flame throwers religiously. I'm not sure if brits get a flame thrower vehicle, but if they do, buy at least one and when the moment is right flush his troops out into the open.

Me and my cousin do mech games A LOT, and when it comes to city fighting the italians automobillia flame thrower vehicle is patently unstoppable in the right conditions. Flame his side of the engagement the move in, works pretty well.

This works well in dry weather. If it's raining or considerably wet, stick with cheaper FT units. Don't waste points! When the flame can't ignite the building, it's only marginally effective.

[Roast Duck]

Thanks for the help. I have some time before we play, my friend is away for three weeks. Setting up a quick battle against the AI may be in order to test a few things. I am still leaning toward buying Rangers (just stuck on the idea), might add a few flamethrowers and if there is a halftrack mounted flamethrower all the better.

I get the idea, treat the bazooka as a direct fire light mortar (in buildings). Target area so as to avoid getting return fire.

Thanks again.

[junk2drive]

"direct fire light mortar (in buildings)."

I have set a building on fire doing that. (firing a zook while inside) It suppressed the team so badly that they never moved or fired again.

[Roast Duck]

Junk2drive I like that, doing that could have its uses if the enemy is inside a house with my bazooka team. May not be true to life, but what the hell (improvise). I am not much of a purist in my video games.

Let me rephrase that, treat the bazooka while firing in an open area against infantry inside a house, as a light mortar.

[Macphail]

i agree with the use of the flame vehicles, but you need a good number of your own infantry around, to avoid suprises, and keep the enemy suppressed while you burn things.

[throwdjohn]

Satchel charges are nice, but I wouldn't rely on them to anchor your defense or anything. They are good against buildings yes, but you will still most likely not have enough.. there's never enough ammo is there? As for advancing you zooks with infantry, I'd give up that idea. I prefer to keep all mine back with an hq of any kind, then use em like a fire brigade against any armor that shows up.

[Soddball]

Spend a chunk of your points on a platoon of Wasp flamethrower vehicles. Burn every single building on your approach using the wasps. Late-war (Nov 1944) British troops seem to have a flamethrower per platoon, and buy at least one extra Bren LMG per platoon for additional fire support.

Recon Assault squads are good, too - 4 SMGs IIRC.

If you can afford them, a Sexton or two (25pdr HE, and something like 80 rounds) will give you some serious close in HE chucking ability.

So ideally, a platoon of Wasps, a company of flamethrower-equipped infantry with extra bren guns, a recon assault platoon for close-in scrapping, a pair of sextons - now you're talking TNT! Angry out loud! :mad:

[ November 22, 2004, 04:29 AM: Message edited by: Soddball ]

[Carl Puppchen]

If you are doing a QB in a city I wouldn't count on the light mortars attached with the squad. The usual method of using these mortars is to have a section or company HQ in cover terrain spotting and the mortar safely out of return fire line of sight (LOS). However, in the city the LOS angles are usually poor (remember, your opponent is coming in from the other side) and you probably won't be able to use them very much unless your opponent pushes your forces to the close edge in which case you have probably lost the objective anyways. Also, the on board arty spotters aren't super useful in the city, either, because the LOS angles aren't great and you don't want to risk losing your spotter in the battle as you bring him into the buildings to try to see the enemies directly.

One way to use the arty spotter is to pre-register on the objective, figuring the opponent will get there first, with like a 10 turn delay, and then slam him at the objective and attack as he is suppressed / dazed after the barrage. Of course, it is probably easier to get to the objective first than to extricate the enemy.

In general, you can't rely on arty in the city, you need direct HE fire, or flame throwers. One thing about bringing wasps or the italian flame throwing vehicles - those things are vulnerable even to ATR's, much less to zooks or shrecks. The tactical AI gives flame throwers the highest priority and unless you are shooting from ambush it is rare to get off more than 1-2 shots before your opponent takes you out.

Direct HE of course is the king, as axis there is the 150mm brummbaur which makes meat of everything, for the allies there is the sexton or the priest, although the priest is highly vulnerable to direct fire of any sort. If the axis believes they have tank superiority they can use the wespe or hummel in direct fire roles, as well (once they kill off the shermans or other 75mm type gun armed tanks).

http://www.carlstumpf.com/combat%20mission/CMAK_New/cmbb_street_fighting.htm

Here is a link I wrote about street fighting from CMBB - most of it applies to CMAK, as well.

[ November 30, 2004, 11:28 AM: Message edited by: Carl Puppchen ]

[throwdjohn]

Engineers are great to a point. I was playing the CMAK scenario "A mountain retreat" with a co. of canuck infantry with a plt. of engineers. I made a fient towards one flag with the engineers, hoping to blast my way thru the town with satchel charges, the blast the objective building (it was a church) and get snug in there until help showed up. Well two satchel charges destroyed one tall light building on the way, and it took 4 more to take out the church. Kind of a waste eh?

[Bannon DC]

I would think you will be disappointed with the zook. Don't rely on it as a main weapon in your attack. Rather hope to get the lucky shot. They are slow and vulnerable. Urban combat will rely on firepower. Bigger squads to lay down cover as fire and advance. If you can have armor, bring a tank in there in just blow the building down and move in with your infantry. Protect that tank... scout with infantry, id targets and pound. The 4.2's will do a good job... but damn deadly to your own troops when the enemy is right across the street. Light mortars are practacly worthless... you'll need LOS for direct fire if you plan on catching anyone making a dash across a street. Even if under command and hidden in a safe spot, it will take a lot of effort to even suppress an enemy in any larger building. I would go with a selection giving you larger squads, armor (a sherman with a big gun...105mm... is that the right size?), HMG's... and of course some sort of flame unit.

[dieseltaylor]

Carl Puppchen

Nice treatise Carl . Well worth the read -- and copy : )

[Carl Puppchen]

Thanks for the thumbs up! Hope you like the site or random scenarios. I don't get too many comments, so I will take what I can get.

[37mm]

great site... I'm currently half way through Khamsin in a PBEM game... its a bloody nightmare but great fun...

[Falcon988]

Best advice I can give you in urban war is to prepare for heavy casualties. Stay off the road as much as possible too. And if you lose tank superiority that means the enemy will be able to bring up their heavy guns and blow you to hell. If that happens it's running time.

[George MC]

Originally posted by Soddball:

......flamethrower vehicles. Burn every single building on your approach....

I did this with German flamethrower halftracks. sert fire to all the house on the perimeter of a village, then found my assault infantry could'nt get into the village past the burning houses!!! Was I pissed off? :eek:

George Mc

[Cannon-fodder]

I would go with a selection giving you larger squads

I've always found that, in urban warfare, suppression is everything. If you can bring your units to close range while the hostile unit(s) are suppressed, you'll win every time. Therefore, I reccommend using smaller squads, since this will allow you to supressive fire units from lots of angles. Large squads are a lot less use in environments with a lot of cover, so small SMG squads tend to be more effective.

Personally, I've often split SMG squads to 5:4 in order to get enough angles of fire on an enemy squad. I've found it very helpful in getting up close an personal with enemies, without them firing back;)

[Roast Duck]

We started the PBEM game and it goes like this. The misbegotten son of a bastard has deployed so far; three Brummbars, two lynxes and engineers. This is going to be painful, I can't post what troops I am using because he hasn't spotted many of them and he may read this. The map is posted in the Proving Ground under CMAK maps, it's called 1600x720 city. Thanks again for the input.

[Roast Duck]

The battle is over and my enemy has surrendered, it was a meeting engagement February, 1943 in Italy, fifty plus turns. The time was midday and the skies were clear. I had purchased; crack Ranger Battalion, veteran platoon of engineers, one vet. M10, two vet. M7, platoon of veteran M8s (three), platoon of crack M16 antiaircraft halftracks (six), three .50cals, veteran and crack(?), and a jeep.

Some observations about the use of bazookas in urban warfare. As noted above, all of the teams pinned themselves after firing and a few times caught fire to the building. Being within command radius helped with the teams not staying pinned and they were able to fire off two to three shots a minute. An aside, all bazooka teams should be kept on restrictive cover arcs if you don't want them to shoot at targets beyond a hundred meters (big waste of ammo). Two of the enemy's Brummbars were accounted for by bazooka teams. The first was killed at 97 meters one shot, while pivoting on a track and taken in the side. The second was killed by an elite bazooka team moving unseen into no-man's-land beyond command radius, one shot in the ass at about sixty meters. The Brummbar had inexcusably stayed in one spot for at least four minutes.

The M10 destroyed another Brummbar and was smashed by its partner, the enemy tanks always follow the buddy system to bring enough fire power onto a target. The M8s proved useful with their speed. Shoot and scoot was a favorite, until I didn't scoot enough and a Brummbar shot in the area next to my tank, at about nine meters and was able to immobilize a M8 behind a house. The second M8 turned a corner and met its death by Brummbar. The third was able to move fast and get (200 meters) perpendicular to a Brummbar and immobilize it, then get the hell out of there.

The mortars were not very useful this battle, but if given a choice I wouldn't go without them. They were unable to stop the enemy's troop movement, and were only able to cause casualties in a small way but they did keep the enemy tanks buttoned. Plus I feel naked without them.

Thanks again for all the tips it helped.

[Cannon-fodder]

I've been playing a few urban warfare games recently, and have a few new tips I don't think anyone has mentioned.

What I've found is that most people try to have a LOT of units in all the buildings, and often have more than one squad in 1 building. Because it's much harder to cause casualties in city environments, squads tend to waste a lot more ammo.

What I've started doing is using perhaps only a quarter of my troops on the front line at any one time. The rest wait in staggered groups and, as the front line takes losses and moral hits, I cycle the next wave of troops in. After the first couple of cycles, you'll have 2 fresh waves while your opponent will have a single group of tired, hurt and low ammo platoons. That's when you lay down all your artillery, HE fire etc. and push towards him. He should be so surprised at a sudden show of strength, and so understrengthed, his line will buckle and collapse. Also, remember that opponents tend to get cocky after minor victories. use this - let him make the mistake of rushing from building to building, into a hail of bullets from SMG squads!

[Carl Puppchen]

The other bonus to not packing your squads in buildings on top of each other is that a smart opponent will do what we refer to as rubblin'. This basically means you pre-emptively stand off and level likely sources of enemy troops. It does take a while, and you need decent direct fire HE (not usually off board arty), but it is a very effective tactic. The "threat" of rubblin' drives my deployment tactics - this also makes rubble a more appealing place because it can't be further reduced, although this does cause more casualties (than being in an intact building) if they use off board arty.

[Roast Duck]

I know much if not all of this has been said before. These are some things I learned.

The .50cal was great against enemy inside wooden buildings, not so great against the enemy inside stone buildings.

M16 antiaircraft halftracks were devastating against infantry in the open and inside wooden buildings, also great for suppression fire against teams inside stone buildings so your guys can get inside and do the dirty work.

The six man Ranger infantry squads were killed by the German squads at full strength. Once I think it was an eleven man Jager squad. They managed to get close to 2 of my six man Ranger squads, and the Jagers were able to kill both squads in hand-to-hand, not a scratch on the German. The Rangers did well if I was able to setup their MGs and treat every Company as an over strength platoon. Bringing small amounts of fire from multiple angles, then assaulting.

As Brummbars leveled a house I noticed men in the back bottom floor hiding fared the best (any chance of getting basements) and were in good position in case the enemy advanced with infantry. Squads hiding on the ground just outside the building being destroyed, on the opposite side from the shot fared pretty well.

To conserve ammo with light mortars. They are given an area to target, then moved slightly so they have to setup again.

To conserve ammo with vehicles. If I need to suppress some enemy squads inside a building or small area. I target the area then have the vehicle move so its line of sight is blocked, the vehicle is given a twenty to thirty second delay using extra waypoints. Sometimes the vehicle is just driven backwards then forwards only temporally breaking the line of sight on the area fire. If I need to suppress some enemy squads inside a building but don't want to move my tanks, one enemy squad is targeted. The tank stops firing when the squad goes for cover and the tank loses sight of them. Infantry are set up to assault or advance into the area after a twenty or thirty second delay, some targeting with area fire.

Move flamethrowers up just behind some of your men were a static line has been drawn in the fighting (near a flag, likely area of advance, etc.). Hide their buts in the back upper story of a building, give them a cover arc and be very quiet. This tactic worked to always route my scouting squad or kill them. The counter is simple enough, attack from two sides (How do you take a bridge?).

The M7 Priest excellent for smashing buildings and causing mass exodus of enemy troops, to be killed by your MGs that setup for just the occasion. The downside is that harsh language, snowballs, and squirt guns are all lethal to the M7.

My TDs attacking is like a game of Whack-a-Mole. They move out of cover, fire one shot (don't get greedy) then retreat back to cover, while another group is looking for the flank. If I find it and it feels right, some of the TDs may be sent with little to no infantry cover tank hunting.