New to the game

[nienie]

I need help. I bought CMBB last year and I just put it back in the drawer after a few weeks. I took it out last month and I am about to put it back in the drawer again. Is it me or is it the game it self.

I played two games today and I had to stop before the end because I couldn't take it any more. First game, I am german and I have to attack the zoo in Kharkov. I find out there is a bunch of russian in a little wood between me (I am in a forest) and my first objective. While I line un three SS infantry platoons plus an ingeneer platoon for an attack on that wood I get a support fire from 700 yards by two mg42 and one Panzer IV. While doing this, I plunder the wood with 100 rounds of mortar and when ready to attack by 20-30 rounds of smoke and on the first turn of the attack I hit the immediate rear of the ennemy with what's left.

Well those russians must have had their special K that morning because they were full of iron and nothing bothered them. They absolutely did not panic. My guys assaulted their position without even firing a shot. No wonder they got butchered. One of the two mg42 in support jammed wich wasn't a surprise to me. And after 3 turns was still jammed. Funny because I was in the army before (infantry) and trust me, it doesn't take long to clear a jam, we're trained to do it fast. And to make things more pleasant, a T-34 showed up, fire one shot at my PZ IV, hit it without even damaging it but my veteran SS Leibstandarte crew panicked and flew from the scene. That's when I pressed alt A. I did what my tank crew did, panicked and left.

It's always the same thing. Your soldier don't fire when they're supposed to. Your mg in support usually do not fire or decide to fire at a target so out of the picture that this ennemy is not even bothering me. Or 3 or 4 enemy tanks will cross a minefield with nothing happening. Or a 75mm AT will fire all it's AP at a single target without hitting it once but that target will destroy my AT gun with one or two shot. My green Tank Killer team will attack a T34 with their MP40. My Tiger gets the order for a fast move of about 600 meters on a road with no more than 50 meters in the open. The jerk will stop in that open long enough to get shot to pieces by those KV it was supposed to flank.

I know I don't know much about strategies but I wonder if it's worth learning when I see so many weird things that just don't seems at their places. Soldiers who don't fire while attacking or in self defence? No way.

If any one can help, please do. All I want is to learn to play the game. Than I'll learn the strategies.

[Icejon]

CM is a great game with a complex way of play. Well first off you have to be really patient with this game and the limitations of the tactical AI in what it can do and what it will do, and wont do. Some things to learn just take time learning. But once you learn its behavior, you can use that behavior to get it to do what YOU want. In reference to your question, mg42 at 700meters is really combat inneffective and a waste of ammo. Usually small arms should be used 250 and below range for rifles and around 400 for heavy machineguns. If you would like, you can PM me and Ill be able to show you some more tips that might make you a more happy player.

[Zalgiris 1410]

I second this; HMG42 "at 700 meters is really combat inneffective in CMBB terms and a waste of ammo. Usually small arms should be used at 250 meters range and below for rifles and also for heavy machineguns." For HMG's supporting fire from up to 400 meters is fine but remember that it is just support fire, although I think HMG34/42's are able to perforate Russian gun shields at least up tp 500 meters and may be as far as 550 meters! :cool:

Personally when I started out I only played defensive battles against the AI, spending over half my time setting up my deployment and then letting the CPU opponent do most of the work and face most of the tough troubles & touchy problems that I'd created and inflicted upon it. I learnt alot about what not to do from the AI that way and how to go about things during my end of game counter attacks that finished him off. It feels slightly better making any mistakes and having unexpected things occur when you've already got the battle in the bag for sure.

I also play larger force size battles so that I've got enough of everything to go around and to lose a few things here and there along the way. I don't like the smaller scale battles of less than 2000 points because of those kind of things that you describe happenning.

I recommend that you check out Jason C's posts on tactics on the forum to immprove your CMBB tactics.

My other piece of advice is save your games before every turn so that you can re-play the WTF's especially when important stuff gets KOed - thereby so that you can cheat basically!

[ December 26, 2005, 11:07 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

[JasonC]

On the infantry attack part, if you want them to fire while advancing, you need to use the assault or advance commands, with assault better if moving right into an occupied enemy position.

But also, you don't attack with an infantry company by moving them over the enemy. You set up most of your guys in cover on your side, and then send one squad (or even a split half) into the enemy cover.

If there are men still there shooting, they will pin or break that one squad, but the rest of your guys will blow them to hell. Think "cover me". Most of your men safe from replies but able to deliver their own.

One guy goes in to deliver grenade range attacks and to scout. Once somebody is in the cover, feed in the rest of the platoon, then all get on-line and "advance".

As for the Tiger pausing in the open, that is probably a sign of using the "hunt" order, which tells him to stop and fire if he sees a target. A tank moving on "fast" will not stop. You told him to stop and fire, you just don't know the interface well enough yet to realize you were doing so. (Also, Tigers have nothing to fear from mere KVs.)

On units not firing when you wanted them to, or at the wrong targets, you can tell them where to watch and fire with a covered arc. You can pick a single target with the targeting command. They will only stop if they can't hurt that unit, or it dies or leaves LOS.

As for the tank hunter using his MPs, they will do that if the target is unbuttoned, and you have them set to shoot at any range. The solution is to use a short covered arc, only as far as their AT weapon reaches. That varies with the weapon, but 30m will have the AT weapon in range.

The overall issue you are wrestling with is simply that CM gives you a lot of fine control over the actions of your units, but you haven't learned how all the knobs work yet. Sure, sometimes enemy fire will break them or chance will go the enemy's way. That's war, which as Clausewitz said is friction. Everything that seems easy is in fact hard.

[nienie]

Ok. Thanks to the three of you. I am finally begining to like that game and I have already began to obsess with it. Dear Jason C, you lessons helped me a lot. One thing, in 202. How do you attack with T34 with riders. I tried to rush to the objectives twice and it did not work. The first time, MG42 opened up and my riders jumped off at 600 yards from the objective. The second time, I hit the objectiv with artillery and smoke so I managed to get closer but still, I lost the battle.

What is the general idea in such a situation?

As far as not shooting is concerned, I still have the same problem. Very often, the enemy will step in an arc of fire and my guys just don't care. Tonight, I had a flamethrower team in the corner of a wood with an arc covering the edge of that wood. "The first russian squad entering here will be toasted" said I. The first russian squad entered the arc then I saw the pink line telling me my team was about to fire. Unfortunately, the russian squad had plenty of time because they killed my tankhunter team that was in the vicinity and before the end of the turn, they killed my flamethrower team who, by the way, did not bother firing. And this happens so often that it is not a surprise anymore. Help me please, I don't know what is going on.

[Slappy]

Tank riders are extremely vulnerable. I can only recommend mounting on a tank behind in known secure areas. As you've discovered, even weak small arms fire will cause the riders to panic and dismount.

Not terribly surprising actually. I'd probably get the hell of the T-34 once MG rounds started bouncing off the hull. There's not really a lot of cover up there, especially with twelve men on top. The infantry, at least in the first wave should be dismounted and in front of the tanks to clear cover they cannot see into.

You can debate whether this is historically accurate or not, but in CM, tank riders are extremely exposed.

I'm not sure what happend to your TH / FT pair, but you may have experienced delay due to one or both of the following.

Hiding will increase firing delay as the unit will need to unhide before firing. Small teams like FTs are pretty stealthy unhidden. I'd just use the cover arc without hide, you'll probably see faster firing.

Need to rotate will also slow response. Your FT will need to change facing in order to fire which can take valuable time. Units always face the center of the arc. A 180 degree arc means the team may need to rotate 90 degrees to fire. A narrower arc, while sometimes risky, will mean less rotation need.

I'll also make a more general suggestion. If you're puzzled by behavior or game mechnics, you can always save (as was suggested by Zalgiris) and replay the turn a couple times with different commands for that pair of units to try to get a feel for different outcomes.

You can also fire up the scenario editor and setup small test cases. If you're wondering at what range MG fire is effective, setup a small scenario with a couple of MGs and a company of opposing infantry (or T34s with riders for that matter). If you hotseat the scenario against yourself, you can see the effects from both sides and very rapidly get a feel for the likely outcome of in game choices.

[Joachim]

a) Rushing doesn't work in CM. Patience is key.

MGs jam more easily in extremely cold conditions. Please tell me if you ever got rid of a jammed MG with thick gloves on. Of course those were not tailor made but anything that you get your hands on. Touching metal with bare hands at below -20°C ain't good for your skin - it might stick to the steel instead of your flesh.

Plus the quality of the parts was much worse in 1942 than it is now.

c) Did the Tiger turn when it stopped? Turn rates are awful in CM. Any turn above 15° will stop the vehicle, have it turn and then continue its move. Turning in trees, stones or wet ground takes very long.

It might be better to issue several waypoints approximating a smooth curve or to plan the move to turn on good ground (e.g. roads).

d) I support the hotseat idea from Jason. Another idea is to save and replay a turn and view the effects of different commands in the same situation. It will take a time to prove something never works. But you'll get a quick feeling for what seldomly works.

Gruß

Joachim

[JasonC]

In 202 you are learning how to attack in the Russian mechanized force way. Which means very tank heavy, relying on the firepower of the tanks to do most of the work. With modest help from tank rider infantry and an occasional FO.

So how do you go about that? They first thing to understand is the dilemma a tank rider attack is supposed to present to the enemy. If he fires early he can make the riders dismount, too far away for them to do anything back. But so far, he will brush them off but he won't kill them. And he will show his positions to the tanks. Which have the range and firepower to blow the heck out of him in response.

If on the other hand, he holds his fire until the attackers are close, the riders will get into cover nearby. Their weapons are dangerous then. And if he holds his fire forever (OK, to 30m ranges where infantry can hurt tanks) the riders will walk through all the cover first, with the tanks standing just out of reach ready to kill anybody the dismounted scouts find.

The key thing to understand in all of this is that the goal is emphatically not to get the attacking infantry close to the defenders. It is simply to kill the defenders by fire. Finding them is part of that if and only if they hide. If they don't bother to hide, you don't care about getting close, you can kill them clear across the map. The riders plug a hole in a "tank only" threat, and remove the response "just stay hidden".

That's all fine as theory, but how do you operate such a force in practice? You generally want a dismounted half squad or two out in front scouting. You should have picked that idea up already way back in 101 and 102. When they get shot at, they just go to ground and crawl for cover. If they panic, so what? Five minutes later they will rally, and they are only 3 tommy gunners anyway.

You advance by sending a whole platoon of tanks (with riders aboard) someplace behind such a dismounted scout. When the scout draws fire you see where it came from. At long range you may get only a sound contact, but you can also see where it happened and guess that LOS is new there, and you can see what covered locations reach that spot. If necessary, you can recon by fire with the tank MGs, looking to see whether a sound contact ducks.

Once you think you know where the shooter is, you send a minute of 76mm HE that way and then keep going.

You can also sometimes run a tank forward to help get spots, though that is a judgment call. You risk ATGs etc. But it can be worth it. Suppose, for example, you are crossing open steppe and pick up fire 450m from a clump of trees, and it dumps all the riders from a tank platoon. You see sound contacts near the trees and hear MG sounds. You can pretty much determine it is an HMG or two in the trees.

Well then, the riders only job is to rally, staying at 450m. Hiding in steppe at that range they will be lost quickly, turning into flags. Shellholes or patches of rocky can also help, especially dealing with cover panic issues. Meanwhile, the tanks advance to 150m or so from the woodline.

What are the defenders supposed to do now? If they keep firing at the dismounted riders, a long way away, they aren't going to do much to them. Just spend ammo and show themselves to keep them pinned or stop them from rallying, but not wipe them out. But with the tanks so close, the MGs will be spotted. And the tanks will blow them to pieces in a minute flat.

So the MGs shut up. Fine. The riders now advance to the level of the tanks. Then one half squad walks towards the trees. It might take you ten minutes, but the defenders are going to die, and they aren't going to hurt the riders very much, let alone the tanks.

See the idea?