Deployment & moving distance to be employed between Squads, Teams & HQs units

[Zalgiris 1410]

I am wondering what is the best distance to have between Infantry type units in CM when deplopying and moving in relation to avoiding suppression from light arms fire. I am asking what distance should there be between units in order to cut out having a unit get suppressed when the unit next to to it is target fired by enemy small arms fire. (Actually area fire needs also to be included here as well.)

I am especially interested in how I should be deploying and moving Infantry Platoons and Companies on the attack. In Quick Battle set ups the troops that you bought start out at 20 metre intervals, is that the shortest that one should allow or should that be extended?

Furthermore the minimum distance at which a player can deploy units close together is 4 metres between teams such as HQs, ATRs, THs, Snipers, Spotters and HMGs. While it is 8 metres from or between full squads.

This means that in a single trench that is 20 metres wide a player can position five teams in it or a squad and three teams or just two Squads maximum. (I hope that that is clear enough.)

But this seems a rather bit too close together especially in terms of the likelyhood of sufferring suppression. I would not recomend deploying your troops this close and definately not for moving an Infantry Company on the attack.

My basic two CM grog questions in relation to this are these:

1: What is the distance or radius that target fire will either hit or suppress near by units, esp moving in the open?

2: Likewise, what is the distance or radius that areafire will either hit or suppress near by units, again when moving in the open but esp for guns &nearby units?

I don't know the best way to conduct Infantry on the move forwards against the enemy in the open. I'm asking about how much distance I should maintain between my attacking Infantry units while I still want to achieve the punch of mass. I want to achieve this without consentrating my troops just to be totally stalled if not attrited by light return fire after I've pulverized the enemy etc. Help me please this is one thing that frustrates me about my CM playing tactics.

[ August 12, 2006, 12:14 AM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

[Bonxa]

I think the answer to 1 is 25 meters. Is reasonable to assume area fire has a 25 meter radius as well? You can always do some testing with the editor to find out for sure.

[JasonC]

Suppression from nearby fire spreads to 25m from the aim point. If your units are at least 26m apart, therefore, fire aimed at one will not hurt the others. But potentially, area fire between them could still suppress 2 or more at a time etc.

In reasonable cover, the distance to worry about is less, because the suppression effect is quite weak in the upper part of the distance. 14m is sufficient in really good cover. You can still get an occasional "alerted" but will rarely see anything worse.

In open ground those add up and can set off "cover panic" behavior. But in woods, pines, trenches or buildings, you can be better off staying tighter to exploit the good cover. I find it is never worth packing tighter than that 14m distance - it just multiplies enemy firepower too much.

There is also the barrage footprint issue. Basically you don't want to put more than a platoon inside the oval that a single artillery shoot might cover. A barrage by tube arty (not rockets) with normal sheaf (not wide) puts most of the shells within 20m of the aim point side to side, and within 50m long or short. So, you never want a whole company in a 40x100 area.

That covers the game mechanics. There is still another reason to tweak intervals used when attacking, particularly over open ground. Units that take fire tend to stop and go to ground. Other units may then come close to them before you have a new chance to give orders, and area fire effects can hurt you in the second half of the minute. Command radius lines also stretch was units move at different rates, halt for pins, etc.

So 30m intervals or even a bit wider can make sense. In practice I like to advance platoons in "blob" formation - meaning the squads form 2 uneven lines with the HQ in the middle, rather than trying to stretch them all on-line, side to side. You don't want the ends of a long thin line barely at the edge of command radius, because any straying will leave men out of command etc.

Notice, blobs also mean a platoon needs less cover across a bit of frontage, because the front rank guys use it one minute and the rear rank guys use it the next. So a blob organized advance can steer through an area with just one tile of woods or a few shellholes, and still have some of the men in cover whenever contact occurs.

Naturally, it is also good for a company to advance in ways that allow the company commander to extend the command ranges of the platoon commanders. By given him a blob of his own in the middle, trailing slightly, or something similar. Single squads can then range over a wider area without losing a command line from one or the other.

I hope this helps.

[Zalgiris 1410]

Thanks Jason I was thinking in terms of "boxes", what you describe as "blobs", although I would have a 2x2 & then the HQ formation. In the case of a 3 squad Platoon I would try to have a 2 up one back and then the HQ with any special weapon teams on the side of the third Squad. My problem remains the distance that I try to have between these units.

I was going to ask about 10m origionally, but I think I've had problems with that distance before in the past. Of cause with a 25m diamiter or 12.5-13m radius for target and area fire effects then that is not very surprising. I have tried 20m by 20m boxes and deffinately had no major suppression problems with that. However, I've felt that that was probably a bit too far apart to achieve a sufficiant volumn of return fire or mass in an assault etc.

Your explaination of the follow on effects of the second wave arriving into the fire zone landing on the first in front of it is something tat needs to be kept in mind too Jason. It makes a lot of sense to maintain a good enough interval between the first and second waves, although 30m sounds a bit far at the moment. OTOH I guess I will be titenning up the width of my formations with say 13-15m in between the 2 squads in the front rank of the box. This ought to increase the mass of the fire line, as it were, sufficiently enough for me to consider openning up a wider distance between the front and second waves as far as I find that to be neccessary.

I might also even just try 15m x 15m boxes in close (coverred) terrain, but 15m x20-30m if I have to move across open flat ground. I think that I'll be keeping with my practice of holding the HQ as far back as possible though. You have to take into account command delays as well that mean that the HQs start moving quite a few seconds before the Squads do. That can really throw a formation out of order and sometimes mean that the HQ ends up ledding the Platoon like how the AI does it. (That is when it actually has a platoon deployed together!) Setting command delays helps to balance things out, but not always as precisely as one would like a lot of the time.

Anyway thanks again Jason, 'cos now I feel rather a bit more confident about moving Platoons and companies across flat open ground in the face of hopefully only light small arms return fire! :eek:

[ August 14, 2006, 09:34 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

[para]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Suppression from nearby fire spreads to 25m from the aim point. If your units are at least 26m apart, therefore, fire aimed at one will not hurt the others. But potentially, area fire between them could still suppress 2 or more at a time etc.

In reasonable cover, the distance to worry about is less, because the suppression effect is quite weak in the upper part of the distance. 14m is sufficient in really good cover. You can still get an occasional "alerted" but will rarely see anything worse.

In open ground those add up and can set off "cover panic" behavior. But in woods, pines, trenches or buildings, you can be better off staying tighter to exploit the good cover. I find it is never worth packing tighter than that 14m distance - it just multiplies enemy firepower too much.

There is also the barrage footprint issue. Basically you don't want to put more than a platoon inside the oval that a single artillery shoot might cover. A barrage by tube arty (not rockets) with normal sheaf (not wide) puts most of the shells within 20m of the aim point side to side, and within 50m long or short. So, you never want a whole company in a 40x100 area.

That covers the game mechanics. There is still another reason to tweak intervals used when attacking, particularly over open ground. Units that take fire tend to stop and go to ground. Other units may then come close to them before you have a new chance to give orders, and area fire effects can hurt you in the second half of the minute. Command radius lines also stretch was units move at different rates, halt for pins, etc.

So 30m intervals or even a bit wider can make sense. In practice I like to advance platoons in "blob" formation - meaning the squads form 2 uneven lines with the HQ in the middle, rather than trying to stretch them all on-line, side to side. You don't want the ends of a long thin line barely at the edge of command radius, because any straying will leave men out of command etc.

Notice, blobs also mean a platoon needs less cover across a bit of frontage, because the front rank guys use it one minute and the rear rank guys use it the next. So a blob organized advance can steer through an area with just one tile of woods or a few shellholes, and still have some of the men in cover whenever contact occurs.

Naturally, it is also good for a company to advance in ways that allow the company commander to extend the command ranges of the platoon commanders. By given him a blob of his own in the middle, trailing slightly, or something similar. Single squads can then range over a wider area without losing a command line from one or the other.

I hope this helps.

Jason

I'm not quite clear about your 'blob' formation would you mind just doing abasic diagram for me

thanks

[JasonC]

Blob, a typical 4 squad version -

00X00000000

00000000X00

00000000000

00000H00000

X0000000000

000000000X0

Whatever. HQ in the middle, the rest in two ragged lines.

As for not having any problems with 20m intervals but finding them too wide, um, you just aren't paying attention. Units hit in the open most certainly will have problems deployed 15-20 tight side to side. You aren't noticing them I suspect because you only think about reduction from perfect morale to something serious like pinned as the problem. That isn't the issue. The issue is rally and being free from fire in turn.

See, when a shooter hits a platoon advancing across open ground, the first guy hit will pin. The others keep going. OK, now the shooter switches to a new nearer target, which it can also pin at will. The critical question for advances in the open is, does the pinned guy previously hit rally to OK in the time it takes to hammer the next one?

If it does, the advance as a whole succeeds - the defenders can't "hold" each "leg" at the same time. The attack "walks" in. If it doesn't but instead remains pinned, then the leading units stop, the following ones concertina into them cutting your intervals in half, and the same question is repeated.

Well, that weak little "alerted" that is goes away in 3 seconds when everyone is fresh, is about the rate a pinned unit is rallying. If the units are 15m apart, nobody rallies - the shots at each piled enough "secondary" fire effect on the already pinned ones to keep them that way.

The guy not being shot has to be *completely clear*. This is vital in the open because a unit hit while in a poor morale state and not in cover, tends to "cover panic" - sneaking sideways toward the nearest shellhole and the like. That tires them, eliminates reply fire, doesn't get anywhere, messes up formations and command distances, etc.

15m wide is way, way too tight for open ground. In 15% cover the pinning effect may be unimportant, but in the open and with the threat of cover panic out there, you cannot remotely afford it.

You don't want to pack tons of men over a given width of open ground anyway. Open is not scarce, cover is. The only force making for tight deployments is the need to bounce through that lone tile of scattered trees or those wierdly arranged shellholes, to maximize rally while in them. If you are going to be in the open, be far from any friendlies, but in command.

The only firepower reason to stay tight occurs in woods interiors and factories. It is limited LOS making for a "LOS differential" at the edges of the formation. That is, the enemy can see A but B and C can't help A because they can't see the enemy yet. Staying tighter makes it more likely you will have a second shooter with LOS - and it is always the second shooter than wins. (He pins the enemy, that frees the others to rally, they pour on the fire and keep the enemy pinned etc). But this only helps if the first unit shot is the only one sent to ground by the same fire. 14m is a good distance. (Think of that as 10m times the square root of 2 and you will see why it works - lines can be staggered etc).

[para]

00X00000000

00000000X00

00000000000

00000H00000

X0000000000

000000000X0

I am really trying to get a to grips with all this military knowledge you guys have so don't get angry with me if the following is stupid.the h=Hq 0's are the grunts, what are the x's?are they squad leaders? am i correct in saying that to get across open ground you would form your men like this 15-20m apart? is this they way to get across all open ground no matter the distance?would they moving advancing or running? would you be combining all of the above.

[JasonC]

Um err, no. 0 means nothing, nobody there, open ground. X means a squad. H means the HQ. They aren't a packed football scrum, they are a loose "blob" of squads around their HQ. It is a purely CM level description of the formation I typically use. The whole point of the term is that it isn't a neatly ruled anything, any more than a splotch of paint is.

And they are more like 30m apart. Always more than 25m. They move by using "move to contact and hide" if they have any sort of cover - brush wheat etc and nobody is yet shooting at them, and they use "advance" if they expect to actually be shot at, or are crossing pure open. They hop from moderate cover to moderate cover in a succession of short advances, each typically 70m or so (as low as 40m under serious fire). Some are moving while others are on their command delay. The idea is to present a variety of targets over the course of a couple of minutes, while each unit also spends a portion of the time stationary.

Once within sighting distance of the enemy, the "and hide" part is dropped, and they instead stay "heads up" to look for the enemy. Stationary squads fire at fully IDed enemies as soon as there are any, at ranges up to 300m. But no decision is expected until the range falls to more like 100m, or even closer for the final attack against pinned guys in good cover.

For those, SMG then grenade range is wanted, meaning 70m then 35m or so. But only one squad needs to get that close to a given enemy, and only after they are pinned.

Sustained infantry advances work by the rally power of all the units coming back up from pinned or shaken to alerted or OK, minute after minute. That absorbs enemy firepower. They fire back as the primary means of reducing the incoming fire, letting pins do the work of cover. Firepower walks over the enemy as rally power sustains it.

Anybody hard hit just rallies while the rest of formation helps them out - by moving closer to draw fire, by shooting back to pin the enemies hitting them, etc. In game terms, short "sneaks" can be used to reach cover within 25m or so, otherwise dead stationary if pinned and a short advance toward cover otherwise. Tired units rest and hide or shoot, too.

[ August 16, 2006, 11:15 AM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[para]

Ahhh the penny has finally dropped! That makes sense to me now.

Thanks again JC

ps are you in the forces or is this all self taught whilst playing the cm series?

[JasonC]

I was in the forces - artillery - past tense, and reserves only - but I learned most of this from life long wargaming, CM included, not military training.

[para]

Well you are fine teacher.

cheers

[Zalgiris 1410]

I understand your "blob" formations Jason and I follow your reasoning about the usefulness of countinhg on rallying units after absorbing enemy fire while others advance to replace the targets, etc. The thing is my problem areas are in under ruffly the 200m range and less. Indeed the closer that I try to get to the enemy the more trouble I find that I'm having in just ending up with a broken attack.

It really is anoying when you are trying to employ "fire and movement" tactics and the manuevring elements keep flopping fully up. Again once the range drops to around One hundred metres my advancing troops just seem to melt into thin air!

The only time that I've had a large amount of success while moving a body of troops over open ground is when I have overly shot up the enemy during the preparation phase. Then I conduct an anti-climatic walkover which looks and goes good but is a little too dully easy. Of cause, I may be a bit used to seeing things happen like that, not having worked hard enough at doing it in the face of moderate resistance with conducting an Infantry attack.

Thanks again Jason you've explained your ideas thouroughly in this thread, I'm thinking a bit also along the lines of your losely set "blobs" as aposed to my set square "boxes". I guess it comes down to being willing to watch your troops take hits from enemy fire during an advance and thinking more about the whole process than worrying about the casualties as much as I do. Still, to perform an attack with Infantry forces over open ground will take a proper plan and a steady hand to manage for sure.

Actually to be a little specific, I must say that I have real trouble getting say a platoon or two to get to grips with an enemy shooting unit or two holed up in a patch of rubble for example. Sure I might of had a 75mm gun or 81mm on board mortars to shell such likely placed opposition but lets say that the support weapon has been knocked out or run out of HE ammo etc; I'm still gonna have to advance to grenade range with a platoon to eliminate said enemy and to take that flag behind it or somethink. IME even trying to move up a platoon aross open ground even if into such places as shell holes, creaters, abondoned trenches or foxholes or even another patch of rubble approximately 30-60 metres away from the enemy firer often results in failure.

I remember playing a resently enough quicky with a 75mm gun or two, and a re-inforced company against an AI enemy company in a flattened village; there were lots of shell creaters and all the houses were damaged down into rubble. My gun or guns fired a bit at suspected enemy positions along with a platoon of machine guns. After a little while I advanced the infantry type units: Squads, HQs and TH teams. I employed a bit of fire and movement with them as they advanced etc. Still I was only able to make it to about half way in the face of the opposition, which must have been a depleating company since the guns & HMGs had paniced a few and continued to pound the firing targets until they ran out of ammo. Eventually I had sufferred too many casualties and shot my bolt even with a couple of squads making it as far as about 20-40 metres away from some enemy positions a few times, but I just no longer had the fire power to suppress the enemy return fire.

I found it very difficult to get those point units to advance closer upon the nearby enemy positions. I was doing my best to provide cover fire but trying to move one or two squads just gave the enemy one or two targets at a time and if they moved they were slaughterred. I tried to move Squads up to better positions but again I faced the same outcome. I'm pretty sure that my troops didn't even throw a single hand grenade for the entire battle!

Basically I was stuck from dislodging the enemy and capturing the objective flags beyond and then finally the game auto ended because of the low ammo levels or somethink. I think that I probably still had twice as many men left, having inflicted about an even number of casualties but what was most anoying was checking out what the enemy firers still consisted of. His squads for the most part still had their SMGs and their LMGs enough to do real damage even their the squads were down to 4-5 men each on average. My Infantry unit had mostly lost their SMG & LMG guners during the bounded advances. Gauling to say the lest!

[JasonC]

Right. See you are trying to solve an attack problem by movement, and it doesn't work. Movement doesn't take ground. Fire takes ground.

The proper minimum infantry attack force is the company. In a pinch 2 platoons can sometimes pull it off, but only against weak opposition with favorable circumstances of terrain or surprise etc. Generally, an infantry attack is delivered by an infantry company.

An infantry company has various internal assets. It has organic ranged fire support in the form of light mortars and MGs. It has a higher level HQ for unit coordination, cycling men, and rally. And it has multiple ordinary HQs to support multiple routes or positions along one. It also simply has the manpower depth, ammo depth, firepower, and the distributed rally power required.

You should steer for any form of cover about 200m from the enemy, as you have been doing. That's fine. Yes enemy fire picks up at such ranges, and the forward men pin. That's normal, it does not doom the attack. You just need the foremost men to make it close enough to get full spots, exact locations rather than sound contacts, on the foremost enemy shooters. And you need to get into shellholes or wheat or whatever at such ranges.

Then you listen to the men. By that I mean you do not force them deeper into the enemy fire envelope before they are ready. That just makes them "come apart" - those sent farthest and hardest draw fire and break, others are sideways sneaking, others are pinned all along the route in, etc. And with everyone trying to move every turn, the net outgoing fire it practically zero. So, don't push that hard. It is apparently counterintuitive, as though people try to race out of the open. But the secret is actually patience and listening to the men.

Listening means that units that are in poor morale states have little asked of them. If the front guys are pinned, then their only job is to rally. If one squad is tired, its only job is to rest and fire back. You will ask less of the whole formation as the fire on them mounts. Those least hit, toward the back, will retain freedom to do things and therefore keep moving. The result is that the force gradually collects in whatever cover is available at the sighting range.

Well, then they start to rally there. And they start to fire back, in amounts that build. Fire by entire platoons at single enemy shooters. Others have the supporting heavy weapons or overwatch fire hit them. Units already sent heads down get one MG or LMG-rifle shooter to maintain the pin on them, while the main body or the mortar switches to a new target every minute.

A few minutes of that pins the foremost enemy shooters and the incoming fire therefore slacks off. The time also gives rally a chance to work its magic and absorb past enemy firepower. It also exhausted enemy ammo if they fire too soon, into cover at range. If their squads shorten up their arcs to save ammo you get rally and fatigue recovery instead.

At some point many of the men in the foremost cover are in decent morale shape again. Most of a platoon, say. Then they step off again, short advance. Sometimes they will get blown up and sent scurrying back on sneak. OK, fire more and rally them while another platoon tries next. Often they will get a little closer and then new shooters deeper in the defender's position will open up on them, and pin them again. That's normal. Fire back at the new shooters and advance some of the least pinned rear guys to cover past them.

The idea is always to draw the fire off the men hit, by providing new moving targets or by suppressing the shooters themselves. Any cover reached should be topped off from the rear of the column - without crowding in - and therefore should continue to emit firepower. The front of the attack is the shield, the remainder of the column fires and moves.

Patiently, your rally power absorbs their ammo and your firepower pins their foremost positions.

When some of your leading units make it to SMG range from pinned enemies, they will finish them off, making them get up and run. Everybody and their brother will then wipe them out. Hard cover, sometimes it takes one squad getting to grenade range. You don't need to move on top of them. After the front enemy positions have been fully KOed, rather than merely pinned, the currently best morale state attackers - even if they are 150m back - advance into their cover over 2-3 minutes. The cover differential shrinks.

See, the key to all of it is having a formation in reasonably good order at that 200m range or so. Wait for that, let it accumulate. It takes the full company to press the attack home, so let them rally up at that range. Sure, when you first get to that range and get your first good spots, the front guys are ragged and the whole thing looks strung out and disorganized. But 3-5 minutes later it is nasty again.

Don't push them harder than they want to go. A survey of your morale states will tell you how hard to press.

[Zalgiris 1410]

Yeah, I guess I don't really look enough at my troops' morale states to a great degree, that's good advice to take heed of Jason. Your axiom about using fire to take ground is what I try to do and then actully move into it. The thing is it so far hasn't been all that pretty when I've miss judged things and found myself having to proceed against greater resistance than I anticipated. I mean defenders can also utilise the rally factor too of cause! (And come back to life! :eek: )

Also I'm thinking about the practices of the AI which just tries to keep moving and having to fire on the move, which is not the best method to fight with. Perhaps too I think of my firing-at-half-power moving troops as more effective than they really are. Must think of maintaining at least one firer in situ against identified targets, preferably more while only a few other troops move forward, even if only one squad that still has an LMG.

Thanks agian Jason, I'm off to practice.

Cheers Saul.

[ August 18, 2006, 06:05 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

[Zalgiris 1410]

I've had a few practice quickies with this, bloody hell is it hard to stay in formation when there are buildings strewn about the place and other terrain features. It seems to me at this early stage of trying some of the above techniques that fire support is the dominating factor as to whether your troops are going to successfully manuevre or not and more important than moving in formation. Still I'd like to get it to work for me though.

May be a move to contact order might be better when approaching expected oppostion especially in built up areas with a lot of two story buildings. At least that way when your troops meet resistance they will stop and fire back. That's fighting. This is what I want them to do. Dominate by fire, suppress and eliminate the enemy without sufferring too many casualties in the process.

I know what I'll be testing next. Using the move to contact order will trying to maintain formations with 13-15m spacing and a second wave likewise. Let you know how it goes. I haven't used the move to contact order much at all before, I had better do a search for some tips about it.

Anyway, to provide a glimmer of the trouble that I'm still experiencing I'll describe what happenned in a resent quicky test:

I had a veteran Inf Company with two Assault Guns and 4 HMGs against an AI controlled veteran Platoon reinforced with 4 Maxim HMGs and two TH & two RR teams. Setting was early War, in a small town map at 400 points approximately. I don't recall exactly.

Basically I was able to move out my 14m spaced squads in two waves with HQs sort of in their own third along with the Company HQ and 50mm mortars. Things went pretty smoothely, although one squad lost its' LMG & SMG gunners and broke & routed early on the far left. There wasn't much that I could do about that other than to keep it under command .It did rally so I sent it back in to make sure that some buildings were definately clear of the enemy that had shot it up and that then was smashed itself. It later also area fired from 150m at two differrent identified HMGs in small buildings until these targets were fired upon by one of the Assualt guns and 50mm mortars. That all did the trick!

Anyway what really pissed me off was what happenned on the far right. Essentially all was going well, I had advanced two full Platoons (-one squad) & two HMG teams & one light mortar into the area. Each Platoon and a HMG were in their own two level heavy building. I fired up some unit at the bottom of the central two level building in the centre with that fire power including using the 50mm mortar. This eliminated the enemy Platoon HQ unit I found out at the end of the game.

With no further opposition I tried to advance. There were three one story buildings on the right while behind the big central building was a whole row of buildings on immediatlely after the other along a road, which wentup the centre left of the map. Anyway, I choose to advance a Regular Squad from big building on the right near the map edge which was situated the far right top corner. As it moved to the bottom of the building and tried to leave it an enemy unit shot it up from the small heavy building 20 metres infront of it. It broke with a few casualties and moved to the back of the building. While everything else that could shot up the surprise firing enemy unit until it routed & ran off the regulars were rallied.

Meanwhile an enemy Squad moved into the third little heavy building next to the row of big central buildings, most of which were light, but basically it become the focus of the fire from 6 full Squads, two HQs and one HMG for a few minutes. I advanced two squads into the other little buildings on the far right, the second was about 40m away from the occupied third one. (The enemy Squad was just outside of grenade throwing range from here. I had also moved up and into the central 2 level heavy building that the enemy HQ had been killed in the left Platoon. Though minus its' far rifle only Squad and one depleted Squad but with the other Squad from the central Platoon, so basically three Squads. Two of these also engaged the enemy Squad in the little heavy building on the right centre while the third advanced into the building beside it, all three had grenade range, also a HMG also joined them in the top floor of the heavy central building and joined all in what had to be area firing of the surppressed enemy Squad.

I decided that the revived regulars deserved some lorels so I orderred them to advance into the enemy held building, something that they would reach within the next turn. So everything in the area is area firing againt the house, (my Assault Guns, two HMGs, Two Squads & two HGs were engaged against maxims on the left while all mortars were out of ammo) all to suppress the enemy who I judged ought to be panicking by now. The regulars should walk it in.

But from about 5 metres out, WTF, the enemy fires at my approaching regular Squad, breaks it, understandably enough at that range, but WTF continues to fire at my regs and eliminates the whole Squad. How could that be? Sure being in grenade range of a couple of units while a host of others including two HMGs are all under one hundred metres away spelt death for the late firing enemy unit. But just how did it manage to eliminate my regular Squad with all that area fire coming around it and other troops arriving within grenade range next to it? How?

This result of all my hard work was very annoying. It didn't please me much I'd like to say even though the enemy eventually surrenderred and I won a total victory. Fair enough, bearing in mind that I didn't have any heavy support fire immediately availiable in this instance; the only thing that I can think of is that may be I should have stopped the regular Squad ten metres or so away (in the open mind you) and hope that it IDed the enemy so that it and especially the other colse by Squads could have won the race to be the first to fire and thrown in batches of grenades as well.

[JasonC]

If you attempt to move into the same cover as an good order enemy infantry unit, you should always expect the moving unit to die.

Think about it - they are trying to come through doors and windows while the men inside have weapons at the ready, waiting for them. It is perfectly realistic, and it will happen like clockwork in CM, than an order to move right on top of a good order enemy squad (anything above "pinned") is a death sentence.

I don't know how many times it has to be stated before people take it literally, but movement does not take ground. Fire takes ground.

The right approach to an enemy squad in a small building is to put a squad of your own in a building very close to it, but different from it. Between their fire and their grenades, they will break it. Other supporting fire can help keep the enemy's heads down while the nearby one gets short range fire ascendency. Which, once achieved, will be kept (barring "fanatic" rallies).

You were wasting ammo firing with some much junk at a suppressed unit. Put one HMG on him, area fire, to slow or prevent rally. If he pops up or fires then send a minute of assault gun HE or a mad minute of aimed fire from a whole infantry platoon.

Otherwise, cut the fire to save ammo. A unit on pinned in good cover can eat endless quantities of infantry fire at range and stay right at pinned. You just want to reduce his chances of rallying, it is pointless to toss the kitchen sink at him.

The sign that a unit is ready to be engaged at point blank, that you can safely enter its cover, is that it starts crawling to get away. That means broken or routed, and at that point you can close to bayonet range or take the building if you like.

Large stone buildings have room enough that you can enter them without incurring the "opposed entry KIA" stuff, but only if the ememy unit is on the other side of the building or facing the wrong way at the moment of entry. If he is at the middle or the front windows, the same opposed entry stuff applies.

Unit ROF surges at very close ranges. That means distant overwatch can be out of the picture for 10 seconds, and the units at pointblank can trade 4 shots in that period of time. Time simply speeds up at point blank range. The real cause of that is that very short movements (within a squad, not needing to move its centerpoint) uncover new spotted enemy, while at long range most short movements leave the visible areas the same as before.

Break the enemy by fire before you move onto his ground. Movement takes nothing, it only consolidates what fire has already wrung from the enemy by morale failure.

[Zalgiris 1410]

Originally posted by JasonC:

A unit on pinned in good cover can eat endless quantities of infantry fire at range and stay right at pinned. You just want to reduce his chances of rallying, it is pointless to toss the kitchen sink at him.

The sign that a unit is ready to be engaged at point blank, that you can safely enter its cover, is that it starts crawling to get away. That means broken or routed, and at that point you can close to bayonet range or take the building if you like.

Break the enemy by fire before you move onto his ground. Movement takes nothing, it only consolidates what fire has already wrung from the enemy by morale failure.

Thanks for the clear run down Jason, I didn't know that CM was designed to simulate the "opposed entry stuff" for units defending a building against attacking enemy troops. This though was not the problem I had in the insident above.

Your right Jason, I was throwing the kitchen sink at 'em, may be not a full double barrel koscher kitchen sink with a HE chucker but a heck of a lot of small arms area fire mostly from less than one hundred metres, including MG and with squads moved up to grenade range, although not actually throwing any yet.

As I said my 2 Stugs were busy on the left flank against his maxiums at the time and I was happy to leave them there for the duration. It was a very small senario so I wasn't worried about retaining ammo loads. I was practicing my tactics.

You see, I thought that the enemy (lost contact stared) unit had actually become more than just pinned under all that incoming fire and was about to retreat or panick. That's why I thought that I could run him through with the bayonet. Obviously not and your explaination, well explains it all.

What I should have done was before I was going to run him over was to have waited for so grenade action to have gone in against him with the guys that arrived in the large building 10 metres to his right front. So after that in the next turn I could have ordered the Regs to have charged him down or to have occupied his vacated building!

I think I've still got that saved somewhere I might give that approach a go and see if that works more according to plan, hoping that it goes properly without fanatical resistance, which their should be none.

[Zalgiris 1410]

Returning after replaying the above bit with the Reg SS squad who got absolutely killed trying to walk it in over a fully shot down & suppressed Russian squad:

I learnt a few things, my hunch that I had to stop the Reg SS Squad in front of the suppressed and starred unit in the middle of a little heavy building was the right thing to do. Thanks for the inferrance to do so Jason.

I stopped its advance 10 metres in front of enemy unit, 15 metres, 20 metres, 25 metres & 30 metres. For each of these times this unit was stopped plainly in the open but fortunately it all went according to plan. The best resault however was getting the Reg SS Squad to advance straight into a creater 11-12 metres from the target, about 5-6 metres from the little builds' front wall! Man did my guys throw some grenades! I also noticed that generally the enemy unit rose up & started to attempt to fire once my infantry came 20-25 metres upon them in range. I don't know yet if this is a set pattern or not, but it may be a handy thing to know about and take into account when planning my moves I guess.

While it was all a fairly one sided afair and the enemy unit (depleted aready mind you to be sure) was always destroyed while routing his arse off 15-30 metres beyond the back of the building, I still sufferred a causualty in the Reg SS Squad some times, even after it had got to its position including in the creater! It should be noted that while this unit always lost sight of the fleeing target shortly after it squirmed its way out and off through the rear of the building, I had other squads on the right flank of it only 20-30 metres away (also just moved up in a double story light building) who also started to throw grenades & fire at the target while it remained in situ, but more importantly had clear shots at it as it fled. This is what garenteed its elimination in each turn play, everytime. I say this because this is exactly just what I want to do to such enemy units that I've had to manuevre up upon in such an involved manner. The thing is that if these other units didn't have the full clear killing field view of it as it bolted, I can't see how it would be destroyed without a dangerous persuit having to be undertaken by the most forward unit- the possibly still very shaken such units as my Reg SS Squad that has just so galantly exposed itself fully to the target (& to every other enemy unit with a clear shot over its recent approach route) and judging by this experience, such units usually are gonna have sufferred a casualty or three in the fire exchange! :eek:

I'm extrapolating from this to a situation that is more likely, I should think to come up, where your squads even if assisted by support weapons are going to be practically making having to make frontal assaults. In such situations, the enemy will almost always get away, skathed, but still able to be rallied, after all that work, because his escape route is protected by more builds or heavy cover etc. I'm not going to be able tactically to always managed to have moved other units up to flanking firing position that have within their fields of fire the rout route of the targetted enemy unit like as in the above example!

Of cause this may mean that I need to think about it differrently and consider it as part of a three (or more) stage process. Suppress with fire the target, advance to within range & grenade the target with a squad or two , in order to flush him out for the final elimination of the grenaded target through the fire deliverred by units with fields of fire coverring his likely retreat route.

(Thats right, what I've had so much trouble with is ultimately just the flushing him out stage in the process though the use of grenades & very close fire, but not riskful hand to hand combat in close assault environments!) :eek:

[ September 10, 2006, 06:29 AM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

[JasonC]

It doesn't matter, if you've pressed through point blank and they run off, they are a rattled broken half squad that will stay in rout for 5-10 minutes. Simply continue to advance and they will never stand again. They will go stationary once out of sight, but the least bit of fire on them as you brush them again will send them packing further and keep them in deepest rout. As for having 1-3 riflemen wounded to KO them, who cares? That's what riflemen are for. And even that only happens in the modest fraction of the time they are only pinned, not panicked or worse, by the ranged fire (that is the morale state that allows that close defense snap-back to shooting, when the squad's immediate "bubble" is invaded).