LMG Annoyance

[TC_Stele]

Got a question about LMG annoyances. I occasionally do 300 pt battles, small maps, random terrain. He's axis german, I'm allied american. His favorite units are usually the LMGs and he litters his defensive line with them. The rest of his points he buys one platoon and maybe an AT gun.

Last game I bought two platoons (cracks and vets) along with an M8 75mm gun. I can get right to his front door but his LMG just start spraying me. He covers the map pretty well with them by either centralizing them or decentralizing them on the map. It's hard to flank a position as usually a couple other LMGs are covering that flank. Tried smoking them with the tank I get but that doesnt last long and smoke isnt plentiful. Any tips for a counter the the LMG?

[Brent Pollock]

Sharpshooters?

It should only take two or three shots per LMG team.

Stop playing "Allow Human to Purchase" and let the computer chose your kits.

[Kingfish]

Better to go with a larger force of lower experience level.

The cost for 2 platoons (crack and vet) + 1 M8 HMC in July '44 is 429 points.

By lowering the infantry experience to green you can buy the following units for the same price:

2x green platoons

4x reg 60mm mortars

1x reg M8 HMC

cost - 421 points

or

2x green platoons

2x reg M4A1 mortar carriers (190 total rounds of 81mm mortar ammo)

2x reg sharpshooters

cost - 430 points

[YankeeDog]

German LMG teams can be major annoyances because they actually have pretty decent firepower. Another thing that makes them useful is that, because the basic weapon is still the MG34/42, they sound exactly HMG teams. Many human players will hear the MG sound contact, and assume it's an HMG team, deploying far more resources than they really should to counter such a small unit.

However, even German LMG teams do have major weaknesses. They lack the mobility of squads (though they're more mobile than HMG teams). And while German LMG teams have much better firepower than their Allied equivalents (BAR and Bren teams), they still don't have the kill/rout firepower of an HMG team -- at range, their firepower is usually only enough to cause the occasional casualty, and stop/pin advancing units at worst. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, they lack ammo depth.

So wear them out. First, analyze the terrain an find and avenue of advance that most limits your exposure to enemy fire -- take on as small a section of the enemy MLR as possible. Use overwatching units, such a MG teams of your own, to interdict any attempts by the enemy to shift forces from elsewhere.

Then set your advancing squads with short cover arcs, and use move to contact and/or short advance movement legs. Each time one of your squads moves, it will absorb a few shots of LMG fire. Occasionally, some unlucky GI will get hit and you'll take a casualty. If you keep your advancing squads under command and keep the movement legs short and ending in at least half decent cover, usually the LMGs will just make your guys a little jittery -- they won't kill. Give your guys time to rest between advances so they recover morale -- ideally, you want them to go "cautious" at worst, though if they go "pinned" as they reach cover, it's not a big problem. At all costs, avoid "broken," or "routed." The short cover arcs are so your units don't waste their ammo on distant enemy they can't really hurt.

Overwatch support in the form of sharpshooters, MGs of your own, HE or Smoke are all useful, but use them judiciously -- you probably won't have enough of these resources to anhillate all of his LMG teams (or other positions), so pick and choose your targets and your moments. Smoke one LMG to temporarliy eliminate the problem of an interlocking field of fire and get across an exposed stretch of open ground; concentrate your HE and MG fire on just one LMG team to take it out of the fight. Spreading your fire support all over the map will make its effects temporary and ultimately insignificant. Choosing your moments and targets will make it far more effective.

Eventually, one of two things will happen. Either he'll have his LMGs fire really quickly, and they'll run out of ammo in 4-5 turns, at which point you can just overrun them, or he'll hold their fire a lot, which will let you press in close. Once you get to within 200m, (1) you'll get hard IDs on where the LMGs are, enabling you to direct overwatch support like mortar fire onto them, and (2) your regular infantry squads will steadily gain firepower advantage over the LMGs. The closer you get, the better off you are. Sub-250m, you can start to have one squad lay down suppressive fire while the other advances -- this will enable you to advance more quickly and with less casualties. And once you get at least 2 squads to within 150m of the LMG, you should be able to overwhelm it, even if the LMG is in good cover like a heavy building or woods. This works especially well with American Squads, which have excellent ammo depth.

As suggested above, to do this, you're better off using decent quality troops (Reg. or even Green) and having more numbers to absorb his ammo and force him to spread out his fire. Even green troops can advance into the fire from a couple of LMG teams, so long as you keep them in command and keep the movement legs short.

In bigger fights, the real danger from harrassing LMG teams like this is that they will slow your infantry advance enough for him to be able to call deadly artillery in on your infantry positions. In smaller battles like this, this is less of a concern -- artillery big enough to be deadly is usually too expensive in small point battles.

Oh, and some force choice suggestions:

With small battles like this, when playing Americans, take set yourself to about 20% casualties. American squads are much larger, and you can therefore afford to lose a couple of men in each squad without really losing much of their combat effectiveness. As a result you'll be able to afford at least one more platoon, and perhaps even allow you to take advantage of the cost savings of buying a full Company. Either way, this will give you more HQ units to work with -- ideally, you need at least 1 HQ units leading the advance, 1 behind the advance to rally stragglers, and a third to command an spot for overwatch units like MGs, guns and mortars. I would go as high as 30% casualties in order to get a valuable Company HQ unit -- the flexibility the Coy HQ offers (can command any unit) is a huge asset.

With really small battles like this, I would also not normall pay for the fire mobility that an M8 HMC offers. Unfortunately, if you're playing as Americans, you're very limited in terms on non-motorized, on map HE chuckers. If you're playing an a time period that allows it, though, consider choosing Airborne as your force type and taking the 75mm pack howitzer, which is far cheaper than an M8 HMC. You can even get the 75mm/L16 plus a jeep to cart it around, and still save a few points over an M8.

The other option is to go the mortars route, either humped or the HT-mounted 81mm varietes. You abolutely must have an HQ available to spot for mortars to use them effectively, though.

Cheers,

YD

[meravelha]

My favorite MG killers are 50mm light mortars.

[teotwawki1]

YankeeDog, thanks for that very informative post! You have some excellent advice on force selection there.

I play the same kind of battles that TC_Stele does...I like them smaller than most of the scenarios, just so I dont' get overwhelmed.

What is the advantage of having the HQ unit spot for the mortars, btw? I'm just curious about how the game inteprets stuff like this. (as opposed to some other unit spotting). Thanks!

[Kingfish]

What is the advantage of having the HQ unit spot for the mortars, btw? I'm just curious about how the game inteprets stuff like this. (as opposed to some other unit spotting). Thanks!

HQs are the only units that can spot for onboard mortars. By using them as spotters you can place the mortars out of LOS to the target, and still fire on it. HQs also carry binoculars (in CMBB and CMAK), thus being able to see farther and identify enemy units quicker.

Keep in mind that mortars that fire indirectly cannot fire at a particular target, but instead can only use area fire at a specific spot on the map.