Help with infantry

[Omi]

I played CMBO for at least 6 months and I've only been playing CMAK for a week.

I can't get my infantry to attack enemy positions when I'm on offense. I tried sneak, move, advance, assault, advance & assault, move & assault. No matter what I do, my squads always end up running for cover in the opposite direction.

When I attack, I always make sure that all my squads are; in command, in fit condition and have plenty of ammunition. I avoid the open as much as possible, I soften enemy position with artillery and I try to get some cover fire from HMG or vehicles when it's possible. I also make sure that the attacking platoons are in greater number than the defenders.

I haven't done a successful infantry attack in more than a dozen of games. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong.

I didn't have any problems in CMBO.

[Michael Emrys]

Things have changed a lot since BO. What are your troops' experience levels? You must not have enough suppressive fire going since somebody must be shooting at them. See if you can organize your forces to provide more suppression. You might try masking your troops' approach with smoke too.

Michael

[PiggDogg]

Omi,

There are a large number of threads discussing methods to successfully attack in BB. These principles apply to AK.

JasonC, the Michaels, and other knowledgable grogs on this forum have presented these posts. Many are in the 'Frequently Asked / Useful Post' thread at the top. Look these posts up and learn.

I'll present the short answer. In BB & AK, infantry will not cross open ground under even the lightest of enemy defensive fire, even from long range MG. Under such fire when in open ground, the attackers go to ground, become suppressed, seek cover, and don't continue to where they were ordered.

Thus, the defending units must be suppressed or their line of fire to the attackers must be blocked (probably by smoke) so that they don't fire at the on-coming attackers. To accomplish this, when compared to BO, the attacker must take much time to discover, fix, fire at, and suppress the defenders. Further, from cover, the attacker must use massive firepower superiority on the defenders.

Find the articles and apply them. Good luck.

Cheers, Richard

[Bone_Vulture]

Omi, perhaps you should send a screenshot of your assault gone wrong; a pic that shows all the movement/target lines. I'm sure we could drop you a few pointers.

[AC]

If you have greater numbers, you should use part of your attacking force to provide supporting fire. If you attack with a platoon against a squad, you should use 1 or 2 squads just to keep the enemy heads down. If you are in cover, you can use pause and short advance/assault orders. One squad should start advancing on the turn start while the other should have pause for for 30s or something, so that when the 1st squad stops it can provide cover for the 2nd and so on.

If you attack against a larger number of enemies, same basically applies except you need more troops yourself.

When I was in the army I was taught that you need approximately 3 times more troops than the defender to attack successfully. In CMAK you can get away with less troops.

[Bone_Vulture]

Originally posted by AC:

When I was in the army I was taught that you need approximately 3 times more troops than the defender to attack successfully.

Some instructor has been reading Sun Tzu's "Art of War"...

[Salkin]

I think the strategy guide said something along the lines of:

"Fire covering fire with aproximately 75% and advance with 25%."

This is off course just a pointer .

It all depends on terrain, opposition and the firepower you have handy .

Just make sure the bad guys are hugging the ground while you advance.

//Salkin

Handing out tips and bad grammar

[xerxes]

Support weapons (HMGs/mortars/guns) are particularyl useful covering fire weapons. An infantry attack backed by a hefty amount of support weapons will be much more effective.

[SSG D]

AC,

My time at Ft. Benning was with the Mortar School, so take this for what it might be worth. The whole point of Gen Marshall's triangular army (three maneuver elements plus a fire support element)was to facilitate the holding attack. As I remember, that attack structure consisted of a base of fire composed of the fire support element and one of the maneuver elements, and assault element composed of one or both of the other maneuver elements, and if possible a reserve element composed of the last maneuver element. Since we won the war, the system must have worked pretty well.

If in CMAK we need to shift one maneuver element from assault/reserve to fire support, do you think CMAK correctly models WWII infantry realities?

SSG D

Originally posted by AC:

If you have greater numbers, you should use part of your attacking force to provide supporting fire. If you attack with a platoon against a squad, you should use 1 or 2 squads just to keep the enemy heads down. If you are in cover, you can use pause and short advance/assault orders. One squad should start advancing on the turn start while the other should have pause for for 30s or something, so that when the 1st squad stops it can provide cover for the 2nd and so on.

If you attack against a larger number of enemies, same basically applies except you need more troops yourself.

When I was in the army I was taught that you need approximately 3 times more troops than the defender to attack successfully. In CMAK you can get away with less troops.

[Omi]

Originally posted by AC:

If you have greater numbers, you should use part of your attacking force to provide supporting fire. If you attack with a platoon against a squad, you should use 1 or 2 squads just to keep the enemy heads down. If you are in cover, you can use pause and short advance/assault orders.

I thought the new advance and assault move automatically handled these things so that you don't have to do it. That's how it's explained in the manual. :confused:

"Advance –tactical move when advancing under fire in view of the enemy. This assumes dashing from cover to cover, using covering and suppressive fire and movement by bounds... "

[Michael Emrys]

That may be the case, but it's still true that troops on the move will not put down the same volume of fire, nor as accurate, as troops occupying a static position.

Michael

[JasonC]

I am happy to get the plug for previous articles I've written on this subject. But the thumbnail versions of them being provided here as advice are not correct. They oversimplify a much more involved story. Applied as stated they will not solve the problem. Which they have not correctly diagnosed.

You cannot avoid being shot at when conducting an infantry assault. The idea that smoke is supposed to mask every shooter, or cover fire is supposed to break every shooter, for an advance to succeed, is unsound. You can't keep smoke up for that long. You can't suppress defending heavy weapons so far away they are only sound contacts. Infantry fire in particular cannot suppress defenders in good cover beyond about 200 yards. And HMGs in good concealment terrain will not be "resolved" to full IDs until the nearest unit is about that close. Trenches will be spotted only at around 175 yards. Area fire at mere sound contacts is too expensive with anything but direct fire HE or your own high ammo MGs - squads can't afford to burn their ammo that way.

Attacking infantry is going to be shot at. That fire will pin units. You will get shot in the open, squads will get caught in the open, some will go on "cover panic" aka sideways sneaking. A successful infantry attack is not based on magic ways of avoiding these incidents. It is based on preventing them from stopping the overall attack, even when they occur.

The elements of a successful infantry attack include (1) some overwatch (2) numbers (3) time. Cover helps but is not essential. Of the three, time is the most critical. Infantry can even provide its own overwatch if there are enough numbers *and* enough time.

Most unsuccessful attacks come from pushing the pace too hard, thrusting men into the defender's fire zones beyond the point they are able and willing to stand. The attackers then "come apart". Only a few get far into the defender's fire zone, those are outshot, the rest pin at the edge of it, or scatter along the route. The single most important thing to prevent this is not cover fire or smoke, it is to not press the men harder than they are willing to go.

The actual moves are from cover to cover, using even marginal forms of cover like shellholes, brush, wheat, rocky patches, hedges and fences. (Dead ground behind hills or forests is also used, obviously). The moves are all made using "advance", and are short - 100m or less to the next waypoint, sometimes only 40-50m. If there is no cover at all, stop after 80-100m even in open ground.

Do not move everyone in a given platoon at the same time, unless the fire you are facing is particularly light. Half the platoon steps out at once, typically - sometimes only a single squad. Command delays and pauses stagger the movement times. A typical platoon advance would consist of giving 2 squads advance orders, the rest advance orders padded with delays to begin just at the start of the following turn. During the command delay period nobody is moving. Then the first two are. Then at the start of the next minute, those have halted (or are about to) and the rest move out.

The overall pace achieved this way can be as slow as 25 yards per minute. It rarely exceeds 50 yards per minute once any fire has been taken. The overall movement is *not* everybody gets up and moves, nor a third get up and move while the other two thirds sit at the start line firing. Instead, thirds or quarters are moving at any given moment, but all are "caterpillaring" forward, each moving in succession at some point.

What does this staggered form of "advance" accomplish? It means the entire formation is not exposed and moving at once. When the enemy opens up for the first time, he hits a few squads, only. Significant portions of the force are halted in cover at any given moment. Others aren't in cover but aren't moving either. And the range to each unit in the force is changing. No one unit is always the closest.

This spreads enemy fire over the entire force. it gives units shot at time to rally. A unit that is pinned halts, others then advance past it. Since they are moving and closer and it is farther and stationary, defending fire shifts away from the pinned unit. It can then rally.

When a unit hits yellow morale it can continue its movement only for a short distance to reach cover. If a unit has reached "pinned" it is halted and remains absolutely stationary, cover be darned. If a unit begins sneaking sideways looking for cover, its movement order is voided. Units told to sit still fire back if and only if they have full IDs of enemies within good infantry range. Otherwise, if in any kind of concealment terrain (even steppe, wheat, or brush) they hide. The "job" of a stationary unit is to *rally*, not to get anywhere.

Rally power, not fire suppression, is what gets the whole formation closer to the enemy. Rally power is a per unit time kind of thing. Delaying the overall advance gives more time to rally through the defender's fire. This is apparently counterintuitive - the natural tendency is to think that minimizing the time of exposure is absolutely essential, and so to "race" the men across to the defenders. No. Don't "race".

The defenders do not have unlimited ammo. They cannot break an entire formation of attackers shooting at them at long range and into cover. Only a portion of the defending units have the range and ammo to hit you anyway - a few MGs, some light guns. MG fire at long range into the open pins, it does not kill. MG fire into cover at range just wastes ammo. Guns big enough to toss killing HE reveal themselves even at range when they fire. The lighter stuff, stuff that will remain a sound contact or can fire indirect (mortars), will pin but not kill.

Even extra minute the attack takes, the attackers as a whole rally, while the defender's ammo counters decline monotonically. If you do not compress the engagement into a short rush, if you slow down whenever and wherever units are hitting "pinned", the net effect is to accumulate good order attackers at the edge of the defender's lethal fire range. This gets you through the merely pinning fire. It is exasperating, tries your patience, involves micromanagement, and can feel helpless (because he is doing all the firing). But it works.

Because at the edge of that lethal envelope most of your infantry arrives, rallied, with full ammo. The defenders are lower on ammo. You started with odds. By holding the fire of more men until closer range, you accumulate the firepower differential you will need to overcome the defender's advantage in cover.

What is the role of overwatch in all of the above, and what is the overwatch force? Overwatch must deal with large caliber guns, stuff that does not just pin but kills. It must deal with armor and bunkers that can dish out fire endlessly without infantry being able to do anything effective in reply.

During the approach, that is all it needs to do. As soon as full IDs are made, however, replacing the mere sound contacts, overwatch has another role. Now it takes out these full IDs in sequence, one at a time. Doing so lessens the fire the advancing infantry will take. It won't end it, because generally there will be additional shooters farther back that are still just sound contacts.

At the same time, whole platoons of the attacking infantry nearest to a full ID stop moving and just fire back at it, for a minute or two. The attacking infantry does not need to move on top of the defenders. It just wants to get close enough for a full ID, and then into cover. Then it and the overwatch shoot the heck out of the IDed units. Only after that does the advance resume in that area - while it is continuing elsewhere, throughout.

What units perform the overwatch role? Is it a third of or your squad infantry, or two thirds? No. It is all your towed guns, your FOs, your on map mortars, your sharpshooters, your HMG teams, and your tanks. Mortars are particularly useful against guns. FOs are used against multiple spotted enemies in bodies of woods. Tanks and on map guns are used against buildings, bunkers, and trenches - as well as armor, their first priority. MGs maintain pins on units hit by the other stuff, and prevent rally by shooting at anyone who gets up to run. Sharpshooters pin guns and MGs.

Do *not* panic just because you are taking fire, and shoot off all your overwatch ammo and FOs at mere sound contacts. Do not call down smoke everywhere thinking you can avoid all fire - your overwatch in fact wants to see things, to take them out. Do *not* rush the forward infantry to cover to "get them out of the open" ASAP, pushing them into the defense so hard they "come apart".

Infantry shows its power by rallying through long range fire and closing inexorably anyway. It presents the defenders with a "fire discipline" dilemma. Fire at long range and you can slow us, but we will just slow down and rally and you can't keep it up all day. Hold your fire until the range is short enough to hurt us, on the other hand, and we will get full IDs and call down overwatch hell on you, or get into nearby cover and just shoot it out.

A properly conducted infantry attack looks like a mess 3-5 minutes in. It looks like a bit of order as a "crust", with debris here and there behind and in a few places at the leading edge, 5-10 minutes in. Then men accumulate in cover near the defenders and rally (perhaps punctuated by a defending arty blow that forces then back here or there).

At the halfway point of the fight, the defenders are losing shooters. Some MGs have jammed, some are low on ammo, the nearest and some of the guns have been KOed by the overwatch, the attacking infantry has reached cover nearby and massed anyway, despite all the ranged fire they have already absorbed. Full IDs have accumulated and the defenders are basically located. The remaining defenders are on shortened covered arcs to avoid showing themselves to attacker firepower and to conserve ammo, or they have shifted positions to avoid LOS entirely. At that point, movement in the attacker's backfield suddenly becomes easy, and ground it took 10 minutes to cross early on can be crossed using "move" in 2 minutes.

There is a lot more to it than a group select "run" order as in CMBO. And it is a lot more involved that just "use cover fire first".

[ January 18, 2004, 05:56 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Salkin]

JasonC I've said it before and guess what ?

I'm going to say it again :

EXCELLENT friggin post !!!!

And now to make this post slightly more productive :

What's the ideal defense against this very effecient advance ?

I know this depends on a lot of factors and that there is no one answer but I'm guessing a well placed arty barrage, mines and a good fall back defense followed by a counter attack (pushing the attacker into said mines) will ruin the attackers day .

Any comments ?

(You don't have to write 2 pages this time )

//Salkin

PS If the terrain will allow it , will the attacking infantry not be advancing with tanks in close proximity ?

[Thermopylae]

The ideal defense is to kill the overwatch.

[JasonC]

A few MGs and light guns can inflict some delay on this sort of advance, but they won't stop it. If the defender has enough armor or large caliber gun firepower to simply outshoot the attacker's armor and heavy weapons, he might hold afterward by using those heavier weapons to dominate the open ground areas the infantry tries to cross. Few defenders are that "rich", but it can happen. Another way of saying that is that winning or at least being ahead in the "armor war" is a prerequirement for a successful infantry advance - at least if the ground is open.

How do you stop them if they do it right and you don't have such an edge? Fire discipline, reverse slopes, traps in the covered areas near your men, fall back positions. The main thing is not to expose the defense or blow its ammo while the attackers are still too far away to hurt. They will accomplish the approach march successfully, if they use the procedure outlined in the previous post. You will have to break them after that.

So you figure out what routes you expect them along, and how far along that route you will let them get before hitting them with your "MLR" (main line of resistence). Whatever the last bits of good cover are that you are going to let them have, you want sited for HE - TRP arty, direct fire on map guns that can see those locations but can't be seen from the enemy set up zone. All the open ground areas beyond that cover you want sited for small arms fire by whole platoons at good ranges - like 100 yards - preferably without being visible from farther back.

That is basic stuff about making a "kill zone". Thing is, the attacker need not oblige and walk right into your kill zone. Or he may with a platoon, get hurt, back off, and try elsewhere. Once he is close enough that his infantry is firing, or after he shifts the point of attack, you need to be able to get out of dodge alive. So you try to pick defense locations with covered routes out, you plan fall back positions - even behind the flags is OK, if you can get there alive.

Live defenders continue to influence the battle. The main goal of the defender is not to prevent the attackers from gaining ground, but to keep the defenders alive in the face of the attacker's firepower. Live defenders will get their shots off, and as long as you don't blow those at long range into cover, you will hurt him. So if the local engagement doesn't look favorable, bug out.

[Salkin]

Exactly the type of answer I was looking for .

Thanks .

//Salkin

[Friendly Fire]

Fantastic information here, thanks guys.

[dangerousdave]

Wow, what a great little How To guide. Jason C, you should consider writing a thorough advanced strategy and tactics guide.

[BulletRat]

JasonC, how about taking up Walpurgis Nights challenge, play him, and make the turns available to us mere mortals!

[Abteilung]

JasonC: I have followed your tactical advice in one form or another for quite some time now, however I do have an issue remaining with respect to attacking. I tend to burn way too much ammo keeping suppressive fire up.

Case in point. I have a company of '43 FJ pioneers advancing in a fire base and maneuver element. It is an assault at dusk, overcast and lots of trees with gentle slopes in a rural setting. The firebase element is 2 Pz.IV H, 2 81mm mortars, and 2 HMG along with 2nd platoon HQ and 1st squad, 2nd platoon, and the 3rd platoon HQ(section HQ, iirc). The rest is the maneuver element. I intended to use the Pz. IVs to keep the firebase covered while in transit over areas where the defenders might have long LOS. I found that despite being at very long range, the AI will always open up on mortars and HMG's if it spots them.

I cannot for the life of me keep from advancing too fast because I simply don't have enough ammo in my support units to last beyond three judiciously small fire missions for the mortars. The HMG's without mortars lose half their suppressive ability. Squads in foxholes can have literally dozens of target lines drawn to them from multiple units and still return fire to cause casualties, so every little bit counts. Usually the defenders plink a tank commander who refuses to stay buttoned (despite telling him to do so every turn) or nail one of the mortar or MG crews. Then they duck and disappear as a sound contact, forcing wasteful area fire to keep them down long enough for units to position for the assault. I simply burn through all my mortar ammo and have nothing left by the time the real heavy fighting erupts. Offensively using arty spotters with anything but a still day, with a clear LOS ends up with arty rounds being dropped all over God's half acre, often I end up with my troops under direct defensive fire if I depend on a spotter to help suppress a position. I am at a loss as to how to proceed without simply buying an excess of armor to simply pound every hole encountered until the occupants give up and try to flee (when they are finally gunned down).

Edit: Excessive armor often is useless on the maps that I play on, and not an option anyway. The current one barely has enough vehicle traversable terrain to get across the map, let alone any type of serious maneuver.

*whew*

I hope I made that halfway understandable. Help please!

[ January 22, 2004, 02:11 AM: Message edited by: Abteilung ]

[JasonC]

You can't afford to use mortars to suppress mere squad infantry. The mortars' number one mission is to KO - not suppress, but wipe out or rout the crew of - gun emplacements. Their second mission is to break or pin fully IDed heavy machinegun positions, particularly ones in woods terrain. They don't do buildings and they don't do trenches (with one exception, next). They also are needed against heavy weapons just behind crest lines, in places flat trajectory weapons just can't hit (round hits ridge in front, or sails clean over).

Incidentally, snipers have about the same mission, though they also go for tank commanders, FOs if you ever see any, and infantry AT teams (bazookas, schrecks, etc).

The Russians can use their 50mms, in pairs, for a bit more than this, because they have so much ammo. They don't hit very hard, though, so they typically have to fire with two of them and often for 2-3 minutes at the really important targets. The "real" mortars - 81s, Russian 82s, Commonwealth 3 inch - have to fire for just a single minute, at just the targets indicated above, with just a single mortar for each target. One minute of 81mm fire typically gets 2-3 hits close to the target, with the rest missing long or short. That will usually kill a man and pin the target, sometimes breaking it. You do not need the mortar to wipe them out to a man.

The purpose of the HMGs is first, to prevent redeployments in the open; second, to cut up broken units that try to run, turning a momentary break into a "routed, exhausted" scattered to the winds kind of thing; and third, to *maintain pins* achieved by other overwatch stuff. That is, the turn after the 81mm works over an MG, put an HMG on that target. The MG fire alone wouldn't pin them, not at range and into good cover. But 6 shots in a turn will add extra pain about as fast as an already cowering unit can rally. In effect, they won't rally unless they can first break contact, or get the MG off. MGs have 15-20 minutes of fire. They can keep this stuff up. So can tank MGs, from the full tanks anyway (SP guns often have little ammo for this).

For other targets you want high ammo direct HE, or FOs. FOs are for full platoons in woods cover, and for reaching just past a crest line. Direct HE means tanks, cheaper HE chucker vehicles if you can afford any, and towed guns (Russian 76mm, German infantry guns, PAK doing double duty, the better types of light AA).

When you encounter squad infantry, it is either close enough for a full ID or it isn't. If it isn't, don't throw away your ammo area firing at a sound contact. Just take the pain, halt the unit shot at, and use short advance and hides with the rest. At range that long, squad infantry doesn't have enough ammo to kill you. The 2 LMG types have decent FP out to medium range. But only 25-35 shots. The 1 LMG and rifle types are the best at this, with 40-50 shots and decent FP. But "decent" is still less than 50 at 250 yards. That'll pin people and maybe get 1 guy in a minute of fire. It won't kill a whole company.

If they are close enough for a full ID they are close enough to hurt you. But you are also close enough to fire back, at least if you have the standard rifle and LMG infantry. Halt the entire platoon fired at. Target the nearest full ID with the entire platoon, for 1 minute. You will suppress him. If his cover isn't great you will break him.

This is important. You cannot afford to burn ammo pushing several units to "cautious", because they will snap back from that in 30 seconds. Instead you want to overload a unit per platoon per minute. Hard. Yes you will continue to take fire from the rest. So be it. But in 2-3 minutes of pause, you will significantly weaken the defenders, and not just temporarily. Put an MG (overwatch or vehicle) on a unit hit last turn. (Preventing rapid rally again). If you don't have enough of those, put one rifle squad on him, one of the ones farther away.

The guns or tanks also target the full IDs. They don't fire at sound contacts, unless you have a lot of ammo to work with and limits covered areas to deal with. (E.g. a T-34 platoon typically sports 200 rounds of 76mm HE. Plus some canister. It can afford to toss some at the nearest treeline before the scouts go in - even just for recon by fire).

A minute of 75-76mm HE fire, direct, is usually enough to pin or break a single target. Switch to another target with HE the following turn. If you don't have other targets, switch to MG fire on the already suppressed guys to keep them down, while preserving your HE for targets that can fire. (An exception is a gun - then fire HE until you see it abandoned. It can hurt a tank and you don't want to play games with that).

Don't think in terms of allocating the ammo over the minutes of the battle, as though it is constantly needed just to keep enemy fire moderate. Instead, think in terms of allocating that ammo over the *defenders*. You want a high enough dose at each of those to break it. You don't need tons more than that. Pin maintenance goes to the high ammo MGs, or in a pinch the relatively high ammo rifle squads. Mop up of units already pinned or broken goes to close range infantry fire.

What the precision overwatch HE weapons (mortars, towed guns, tanks) are needed for most of all is to rapidly take out the most powerful defending heavy weapons, the things that can shoot down a whole platoon in a short period of time. The guns, the tanks. When you have IDs they also silence the HMGs - but that can take a while because range can leave them a sound contact for quite some time.

Again, you have to pass through that part of the range envelope with just "rally power". You won't silence mere sound contacts, not all of them, and it usually isn't worth the ammo to try (exceptions for hundreds of rounds of HE and limits target locations, etc). An advance doesn't need to prevent any shots from being taken at you to succeed.

The stuff that remains stealthy is low caliber stuff at long range. And only a portion of it can keep firing - the high ammo stuff (rather than squad infantry). That is annoying and causes delay, but it won't shoot down your whole force. Spread around the pain it causes, and give your men time to rally from its effects. Work closer. When you get into full ID range you start hurting them back.

[Abteilung]

Excellent! Thanks. The changes suggested have so far yielded good results. I started a random QB that gave me US Engineers attacking a large town. 800 pt assault. I have been able to move a platoon, using 1 MG as occasional distration, about 350m so far in the open with a wooden MG bunker covering them (trying to, anyway). We have taken two casualties thus far, both from the aformentioned platoon, and are now in a good position outside of town.

Looks promising thus far, especially since the bunker doesn't seem to have a fix on anyone in particular for more than a few seconds at a time when they are moving. He has no clue where the MG is yet. This platoon has cleared a path for my main assault force to move up behind. That force simply being a couple of Shermans, 75mm HT's and 4 trucks to move one platoon and the support assets up. The approach march to a large town across mostly open space has only yielded two casualties, neither of them being serious damage or from critical units.

I really appreciate you taking the time to go into so much detail. It really helps a lot.

:cool:

[Snowbart]

Great stuff JasonC

[Schugger]

Originally posted by Snowbart:

Great stuff JasonC

Yup, I second that.

Now that I have found out that it is much healthier to use the "advance" command instead of the "Run" command, I would like to find out how to handle the "Engage" command properly. My troops ordered to "Engage" an enemy mostly decide to stay where they are, even if they are not under fire, are 20m or so away from the enemy and are in good order and in command.