Scouting the enemy, worth it or not?

[JLF]

SpaceHamster wrote...

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It can be worth it, sure it can.

However it ain't nearly as important or necessary some might and seem think.

Just go in and go in by force! (backed with mad hamster laught )

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SpaceHamsters everywhere

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I guess that´s a question of tactics. Forcing the enemy to reveal his troops/plans before you should give you the upper hand and most certain victory if you manage to use the info to your adventage.

Scouting, even if it´s done with squads, sharpshooters, jeeps or whatever, is essential to all facing a good opponent. Thats my clue!

[Pak40]

The bottom line on the Jeep Recon:

Not Gamey - Using jeeps as recon on your "own side" or in no man's land in a "carefull" manner (i.e trying to keep the jeep crew alive).

Gamey as all Hell - Using jeeps as recon well behind enemy lines, fully exposed, when you damn well know that they will not come out alive. Reason that this is gamey: Because that sort of S#$t never happened. There isn't an officer alive who gave orders like "Private, I'm going to give you a jeep and a radio. I want you to drive this thing around behind enemy lines as fast as possible; but before you die, radio me and tell me everything you see." Sorry, this never happened. It's pure suicide, and no sane man would ever do it.

[Silvio Manuel]

Good point.

The key is that while Jeeps may have been used a bit recklessly, and the crews killed, their CO would NOT get the vast Intel back via radio...AFAIK radios were not prevalently used for such a purpose.

[Guest Mike]

Thanks for hte various clarifications. I've always found MG's are the best anti-jeep weapon rather than cannon. Especially the cheap MG42 LMG's.

Unarmed jeeps often get abandoned at the first burst of fire at them and the crews end up as prisoners - lot's a' points

[Shosties]

Originally posted by Pak40:

Gamey as all Hell - Using jeeps as recon well behind enemy lines, fully exposed, when you damn well know that they will not come out alive. Reason that this is gamey: Because that sort of S#$t never happened. There isn't an officer alive who gave orders like "Private, I'm going to give you a jeep and a radio. I want you to drive this thing around behind enemy lines as fast as possible; but before you die, radio me and tell me everything you see." Sorry, this never happened. It's pure suicide, and no sane man would ever do it.

Tell that to guys like Vladimir Penniakoff and David Lloyd Owen, though of course some people might doubt that they were entirely rational in those days. Going behind the lines in light vehicles was their bread and butter, either for raiding (PPA) or for gathering intel (LRDG). Of course, they would have avoided strongpoints and dust-ups on the front line like the plague... i.e. the vast majority of situations modelled by CM. So yeah, jeep rushing in CM is generally gamey, but be careful about being so definitive and categorical about RL. Cheers.

[ August 06, 2002, 03:24 AM: Message edited by: Shosties4th ]

[Olle Petersson]

Regarding the original question...

If we contemplate attackers recon by vanilla infantry, I have problems figuring out how to do.

- If I demand all squads to be within C&C at all times, I will not have time to check all areas OR I will end up using ALL infantry for the recon OR the recon will use up all available time.

- If I use a spread screen of rifle teams they will not be within C&C and will get toasted as soon as they're fired at.

Any ideas?

Cheers

Olle

[Conscript Bagger]

Olle makes a good point about time. I use recon squads/teams in one of two ways: If there is plenty of time in the scenario, then I might try scouting across the battlefield in hopes of finding a weak point to attack. For this you need several scout units on a fairly broad front.

If the scenario is short, then I've usually already decided on my route of attack during setup, and I would use a smaller number of scouts to lead off the advance and locate ambushes.

At any rate, my success in scouting often depends on keeping the main force far enough back to be somewhat safe, but close enough to support the scouts when they run into trouble.

[Slappy]

I usually allocate 1 team per platoon or 2-3 per company for each lane of advance. I've never had any success surveying every meter of ground (long time limit urban scenarios being the exception where I see a zook behind every door). This, combined with 1-4 sharpshooters in the gaps looking to camp out with broad LOS is the best compromise I've found. I tend to scout more in the 'Ambush Prevention' camp than the 'Trace the full MLR and find the gaps' school.

[Eric Alkema]

Ok, so there I am. I have scouted in front of the main body and encountered nothing. The scouts are in a clump of trees big enough to hold the first wave of my main body. In front of me is 100+ yards of scary open grass. On the other side is an area of trees containing a large flag. Within my line of sight are another area of trees, a light building and a hill. A scout moving around at the edge of the tree line teases a single MG to open fire. Now what?

What I ended up doing was a minute or two of speculative 4.2 inch mortar fire into the two tree covered areas followed by smoke between the open gap and the rest of the map (there was a corridor that spanned the width of the map and the gap I was going to cross was the right hand end of that corridor) and then bonsai charge with two platoons. I had a couple MGs and a Sherman for DF support but still only the one MG to shoot at. Now that I am across, I suspect that this spot was rather lightly defended and arty has been called on my jump off point. I still have a fair amount of troops milling about in that area.

So, should I have scouted across the open area and risked losing the scouts and possible attracting arty to my jump off point or spend time and mortar rounds doing something like what I did?

:confused: