A modest primer on CMBB tactics

[Claymore]

Oh, the old days of CMBO when infantry could roam with impunity across the battlefield. What is a poor soul to do now when any old babushka can come hobbling out of her shack and put an entire platoon of manly Aufklarung into flight at the sight of her bloomers?

I’ve taken this time then to scrape the mold off my body and come out into the light of day. Yea verily I say unto you “I have played CMBB for as SHORT a time as any of you scurvy dogs and have just as much right to see my thread go whizzing off the forum front page as any of ya!”

It's all obvious to most of you but I want the new people here not to get frustrated with CMBB. It's a fine fine WARgame and you need to work with it a bit, other wise seeing your troops dive to earth repeatedly get old pretty fast.

So here it is…my opinions on how to make friends and influence people in the CMBB universe.

Well first off, forget smashing away at H v H matches and spend a few nights with the TacAI. Although the TacAI has its share of problems in the mid- and endgames, it can serve as a useful teaching aid. Most importantly, it will teach you how not to be continuously embarrassed by your human opponents.

Secondly, defending against the TacAI teaches you naught. What you’re needing is a lesson in “fire and maneuver” tactics and mowing down the TacAI troopers in a defensive battle is just too easy. Setup a 1500-2000 pt Quick Battle Attack with a 30% reduction in your attacking forces. This yields near equality in the purchase screens. For this demonstration, choose the AXIS forces and UNRESTRICTED for the computer opponent choices. Operating under the idea of learing to “walk before you run” stay away from muddy or snowy environments. For this lesson plan let’s consider a date chosen between June’41 and July ’42. This is a very interesting time for force types and there are no obviously asymmetrical Axis assets, like the Tiger tank. Instead, pick out a reinforced company of infantry and a modest caliber artillery spotter or two. Add in some SUPPORT units of a couple of HMGs and mortar tubes (or mortar HTs…booya!). Finally, a platoon of armor (Stug, PzIV, or equivalent) and a few AC and you’re all set.

Lesson #1. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION! You really need to pay MUCH more attention to the lay of the land in CMBB during the SETUP mode. You are typically faced with the following dilemma: Approaches through stretches of open terrain are to be avoided since it takes only the firepower of a few enemy forces to stall your advance. On the other hand, the TacAI is also likely to plunk down its forces in good cover that is immediately adjacent to the VLs. You may then find that the approaches through covered territory end up hitting the VLs with the thickest density of defending enemy troops. Likewise you’ll have far more difficulty in moving your crew served weapons (which are your backbone suppressive force) up to the meet the enemy with short LOSs. Pay close attention to the possibility of using “dead ground” in even slightly hilly terrain. Most times you can establish a route of march that will bring you at least half-way through No Man’s Land (NML) without exposing yourself to too much. I typically setup my two thirds of my infantry as maneuver elements with the remainder and support units (MGs and mortars) in overwatch of this initial path.

Rule of thumb #1: If you can eyeball an approach that appears to have ~100m stretches of open terrain between cover, then you’ve probably found your optimum path.

Rule of thumb #2: Try to keep your infantry setup locations out of LOS of the enemy. Turn 1 pre-planned artillery barrages can completely ruin your day. What you can do is place a few of your armored assets in plain sight some distance away from your infantry. The computer will usually bombard them in Turn 1 if it has a FO with LOS.

Lesson #2: IT’S FIREPOWER STUPID! This is where the real improvements in CMBB come to the fore and of course the raison d’etre for this primer. We need to know how to deal with enemy firepower shutting down your troops and wresting the initiative from your hands. The answer: fight fire with MORE fire. To maneuver and win, you need to be able to overmatch the opposing forces’ firepower with your own. You must either force them to ground or eliminate them. You must maneuver your forces to achieve an overwhelming local superiority in firepower at distinct places and times of your choosing. It’s that simple. In the end then in CMBB attacks against forces of comparable quality, the “worth” of a force type lies first in its firepower, its resistance to opposing firepower and then its mobility. Adequate forces must always be on-hand such that when the enemy reveals themselves you have sufficient firepower to overwhelm them. Not in three rounds, but immediately. It’s the art of maneuver warfare, attaining an overwhelming tactical advantage in one area, at one time. This is an important lesson to perfect against the computer because humans can respond much quicker and more flexibly. If you muddle through against the TacAI and never improve your response times then you’ll be doomed against your human opponents. However, if you perfect this art then you’ll always have the initiative against your human foe. Knowing this will even free up other tactics, for example feigns become much more potent when your opponent believes that when your forces reveal themselves much destruction ensues shortly thereafter.

Lesson #3. See Me?, SEE YOU!. Let’s get back to the Quick Battle now. Your forces should be advancing predominantly using the MOVE command, leapfrogging platoons across open areas. Always have your support units overwatching your route of march before crossing open terrain. Make sure that your MGs, mortars, and possibly your Panzers are emplaced to give covering fire if enemy forces reveal themselves. If you’ve planned your route march carefully and are lucky with the generated map, these open areas should only have KEYHOLED LOS to areas that the enemy may be occupying. This serves many purposes. First, it limits the number of eyes that can see and discern your approach route. Second, it limits the number of enemy units that can impede your march. Consider then if a Maxim MG or two uncover and start laying down suppressive fire on a stretch of terrain being crossed by your troopers. The troops within the beaten area go to ground and are out of the fight for this round. If you’ve planned ahead sufficiently you should have placed your own support units with LOS through the keyhole as well, but with an overwhelming amount of firepower available. Immediately open up with all available units and suppress the hell out of the enemy units. Move your infantry into cover as they become UNPINNED, then follow up with your support units and remaining overwatch units. It’s been my experience that too much firepower is better than too little. Excessive ammo expenditure and an ensuing end game drought effective units is the counter-argument. You’ll need to play numerous games to find what amount of firepower rationing fits your style of play the best. To advance over the remaining territory, rinse, lather, repeat. Be warned however that the craftier human opponents may not be as eager to bite on those first infantry units that come within their firesack. A more patient and effective defender will allow those first tantalizing units to pass through the keyholed terrain and then unload only when the high value assets reveal themselves. Obviously the CMBB ability to cover arcs for armour and non-armour trigger events is a huge enabler of this tactic. An attacker stripped of his assets which provide his bulk suppressive fire will be unable to make any headway when he reaches your main line of defense (MLD).

Sometimes though, with more open maps, you find your troops stalling out because of enemy fire coming from long range and you have too far to advance over open terrain. This is accompanied by the frustration of only having vague “Infantry Sounds” locating possible enemy forces. Ranges for this spoiling fire is typically around 500m and makes it very difficult to apply the recipe outlined above. In these cases my principle tactics are to do the following:

1. Move forward support units to any terrain that provides cover and has LOS to enemy locations. Specifically disembark any support units riding on the armor, bring up the FOs, and get your mortars emplaced for indirect fire.

2. SNEAK forward any small recon units (e.g sharpshooters or anyone with binoculars) towards enemy locations. Try to have these recon units under the command of +2 RANGE leaders so that they are not left to panic quickly if discovered and brought under fire. This is a much more patient approach that may not be practical in some cases. You’ll need to patiently wait the 4-5 turns to allow these keen eyed units to reach areas with good LOS to the enemy.

I prefer to:

3. Call in a SMOKE screen on the terrain perhaps 100m in front of the suspected enemy location and plan to terminate after a one minute barrage. Note that the 4-tube mortar FOs have the best SMOKE laying properties when ammo expenditures are taken into account. Issue RUN and HIDE commands to your best MORALE/STEALTH platoon and use the delay commands such that they will take off immediately after the SMOKE screen becomes effective. The maximum distance the platoon should be ordered to traverse is approximately 200m, or whatever the ground conditions will allow for a 1.5 min smoke screen. Obviously you are hoping to terminate the move in a nice copse of trees, but don’t overlook the concealment values of STEPPE or WHEAT FIELDs. If this distance is still insufficient you can increase this length of the SMOKE screen and RUN commands accordingly.

4. The next turn UNHIDE your troopers and allow the CM spotting routines to start localizing the enemy troop locations. You should be ~300m distant now from them and was when they open fire you should be much more capable of fixing their locations.

5. Now apply as much support fire as possible on the enemy locations. AREA fire with HMGs and mortars is preferable. I’d suggest at least 3 HMGs per enemy platoon to PIN them. If you feel fairly comfortable that no ATGs are laying in ambush you may also more forward your direct fire HE assets and attempt to lay fire into suspected enemy concentrations. The MGs mounted on ACs are especially useful in these conditions, since they have high suppressive firepower. They also will typically cause ATGs to unmask themselves. SHOOT and SCOOT tactics where you repeatedly move back and forth from an area with LOS to the enemy troops is fairly effective. Note that HTs are not considered armored vehicles by the ATGs (I think) and using them for suppressive fire will not cause the ATGs to reveal themselves. I have not been impressed with the small caliber FO artillery ability to suppress entrenched REG+ infantry, especially in more open terrain. The treebursts achieved in wooded terrain assists but the inability of the CM engine to vary the artillery sheaf types inhibits your ability to suppress a distant extent of treeline. I have found instead that direct HE and on-map mortar fire spread throughout the enemy positions in AREA fire to be at least twice as effective.

6. Following enemy suppression, move the remainder of your troops up to the last staging position, typically 200-300m from a VL.

Observation #1: It has been my experience that the defensive CMBB TacAI prefers to setup its ATGs near the extreme back edge of the map. Further, it places very few infantry in forward locations. This means that it is likely you’ll not meeting any enemy forces during your initial phase of movement through NML. Don’t count on this with a human however, they are much more sneaky bastages. Plan for the TacAI to put ATGs in the corners of the map, especially if there are any positions with covering terrain within 200m of the rear edge of the map. Plan to have your support elements covering these areas when you near regions with LOS to these areas. As much as I hate to admit it, you may have to motor around one of your low-cost ACs to sucker the ATG into revealing itself. Far better to lose a HT or AC than a Panzer. This can be charged to be patently attritionist in its outlook but by-in-large attacking forces did not lead with their chin (armour). ATGs performance is considerably hindered by the BORG-like sighting rules in the CM engine. As an attacker however, you must use this to your benefit and unload mightily upon any who dare impede the progress of your glorious armoured forces. This is where mortar-HTs really begin to shine now that platoon (and above) leaders can spot them for indirect fire. German 251/2s and 250/7s give the attacker massive suppressive firepower upon demand.

Observation #2: Many times human and computer opponents like to move a fast tank (AC or tankette) to cover the KEYHOLE and hinder your advance. These are a little more difficult to deal with than enemy infantry or support units and may delay your advance a turn or two. There are two ways to handle this.

EQUAL or LESSER OPPONENT: Gang-tackle any opponent that is equal or lesser strength than yourself. Met with a Soviet T-26? Move your platoon of 250/10 into the keyhole and mush him! The key tactic here is to maintain the pressure on your opponent by overwhelming any of his forces he feeds piecemeal into covering the KEYHOLEs. You may lose an AC or HT to him but the remaining members of the platoon will bring the exchange down to 1 for 1. Most likely however is that with 1:3 or worse odds, you will eliminate him first.

INVULNERABLE OPPONENT: Typically human opponent matches will be played under some rule sets that disallow invulnerable assets (e.g. Fionn’s Rules). In our computer game however, there are no such understandings and a KV-1 can easily come trundling into view of the KEYHOLE. Here, you first need to button his ass up with HMG fire and then SMOKE him into complete oblivion. I hesitate to use valuable FO assets at this point and would much prefer to use 81mm HT mortars to obscure his LOS. Unfortunately you can only play this game a limited number of times due to a limited number of smoke rounds. That means if you are faced with a pesky enemy tank that you see will continually ruin your digestion in the turns ahead, you must break off sufficient forces from the main body and deal with it. Typically this entails maneuver tactics with your platoon of panzers to ensure a flank or rear kill shot. In the early years of the war the tank hunting infantry assets were poor at anything longer than phone-booth distances so I’d not count on them to resolve things in your favour.

Last Lesson #4 There’s nothing like MAIN LINING! Woo Hoo! There’s nothing like a patient grind through NML, only to be followed up by the heady rush of storming the enemy’s main line of resistance (MLR)! As you get more experienced in CM maneuvers, you’ll find that you reach the enemy MLR as a whole without much time lost in setting up for the final assault. If things have gone swimmingly then you are with ~200m of a VL with the majority of your forces under covering terrain. You will have also chewed up a variety of enemy assets, typically MGs, IGs, and ATGs. Pressing home the attack in a timely manner is vital, especially against a human opponent. In the defense, it is at this location and time that I would typically unleash whatever remained of my artillery against my foe. It is the disruption of his timetable and retaining or maintaining the initiative that I am working towards. This is not a historically accurate way to use artillery due to the proximity of friendly troops, but it is very potent in CM. Thus, don’t allow your enemy the turns required to bring an FO’s fire down upon you. This is also the time and place where your FO assets are meant to be used. First, to smoke and obscure that intervening open terrain. Second, to suppress over a wide area, unseen infantry that lie in wait for your forces to approach. This isn’t entirely like the previous situations where the enemy is dealt with singly or in small numbers. The terrain in front of you will likely be capable of being swept with numerous enemy assets. If this is an isolated VL you will likely have overwhelming fire superiority and may choose to forgo the smoke. If you suspect that you don’t have enough assets to cover all of the enemy you are likely to face, I’d suggest planning on a turn or two of preparatory artillery and switch to smoke on the turn where you jump off for the first assault.

Just like anyone I’ve setup simulations in the CMBB editor and have found a couple rules-of-thumb with which I work.

0. Enemy units are suppressed easier before they start firing at nearby targets. Kind of strange but in my limited testing once they start firing their weapons it is much harder to force them to ground.

1. For every enemy platoon within the pattern of a small caliber 4-tube artillery fall, count on only one squad in panic and another pinned in a 2 min barrage. This means you really require the fire of 3+ FOs to completely suppress an enemy if you rely on artillery alone. This is an uneconomical use of over 300pts of assets IMO and I find small caliber FO best used for SMOKE.

2. ATGs and HMGs can only be suppressed or eliminated in an economical way by HMGS, on-board mortars, and direct fire HE. This is especially true it seems if the enemy has already started firing. At +400m it requires at least two HMGs, or two on-board mortars, or one 75mm direct HE asset to suppress ATGs and HMGs.

3. Entrenched enemy infantry requires twice the number of opposing infantry units to achieve suppression by small arms firepower alone.

4. Multiply all the above by 1.5 to be completely sure that an attack will be carried off without too many ugly surprises.

Hopefully at the end of all this you’ll find yourself in possession of one or more enemy VLs and in an optimal flanking position. Although CM doesn’t model the effects of rolling up a flank completely accurately it is satisfactory in most accounts. Most likely the enemy at this point will have lost most of its mobile assets in piecemeal attacks, which you have repulsed. Further, your troops will be in a kind of echeloned or wedge formation (depending on how close to the map edge the VL is), while the enemy infantry remains entrenched parallel to your next movement direction. This means of course that you will be able to defeat most of the remaining VLs in detail, one at a time.

Cheers

MRD

[MikeyD]

Damn, you have good typing skikks... I mean skills.

[IronChef4]

The thing that I've noticed is that no longer are tactics simply "How to win in CMBB." These are REAL tactics. . . . . I'd like to think that if, after learning a bit or two about how to win in the game, I were miraculously transported back in time and given control over a small group of soldiers in a similer situation, I could use those SAME tactics. . . and possibly win? Anyway. . .this game is that REALISTIC.

[ October 03, 2002, 01:22 PM: Message edited by: IronChef4 ]

[Broken]

Bump, good article by Claymore.

[MrNoobie]

nice...im still haveing trouble utilizing the LOS key though

[Big Poppa Pump]

Very nice write up.

"0. Enemy units are suppressed easier before they start firing at nearby targets. Kind of strange but in my limited testing once they start firing their weapons it is much harder to force them to ground."

Is this intentional or a potential bug? IMO the effect of incoming fire should be irrelevant of whether or not the target is firing at the time.

[tar]

First off, it may not even be true. Effects like this are often imagined.

Second, if true, it may not be unrealistic. If you haven't started engaging the enemy yet, you may be more likely to keep your head down if you hear bullets whizzing by. If you've already determined that the enemy is enough of a threat to shoot at, then you may be harder to suppress.

At this point, I would guess that the effect is an illusion, though.

[Big Poppa Pump]

It may very well be realistic behavior.

It also may be an illusion. I heard mention of this occurance in another thread. Wondering (1) if it actually works this way and (2) is it realistic if it does. I'll leave it to the grogs to determine #2.

[Specs]

Claymore:

0. Enemy units are suppressed easier before they start firing at nearby targets. Kind of strange but in my limited testing once they start firing their weapons it is much harder to force them to ground.

Soldiers seem to become braver when firing a weapon at something or someone -- it's as simple as that. This phenomenon was observed as early as the American Civil War (and quite likely earlier than that) and IIRC it also comes up more than once in the "Lessons Learned" publications.

[aka_tom_w]

what a great article!

Nice Job!

It should have its own web page for posterity IMHO

-tom w

[imported_WARHAMMER]

zzzzzzzzzzzz "hicup!" zzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Ozzieboy]

bump

[ColdSober]

*BUMP*

[Lawyer]

Nice job, Claymore. Thanks.

[Paul]

I have saved your great article into my CMBB folder. This had to take a lot of time to create and is worth saving. Thank you very much.

[Geier]

Great article!

One nit pick, or rather a personal opinion, is that defending against the TacAI DOES teach you a few good things.

Firstly, it has an uncanny ability to find some LOS to your defending hull-down AFV's, which is (in some ways) better than anyone I've met in pbem play. Sure, it does a lot of "stupid" things too, but it should be remembered that the TacAI has access to The Numbers, something we humans don't. Its lack of memory is however also something that speaks against it.

Secondly, it sometimes does not do anything at all in a turn. And sometimes, that is the right thing to do. Everyone I play (and me) are a bit fixated with always doing something every turn. I've found that it is often not what you do so much as when you do it. Timing is crucial. Defending against the AI is good for teaching this imo.

Well, that was just my uninformed opinion which also served as a BUMP of this text.

[Sytass]

Are you sure that the AI doesn't do anything at all during some turns? My perception so far was that when it has visible units immobile within your sight they use them as overwatch while other units (often not spotted) advance...

[Abn Air Cav]

Nice job, thanx! :cool: