HOWTO: Infantry advance against MG positions

[tlassila]

I've now been trying some of the smaller, infantry based battles that come with CMBB. It seems like a few I've tried were simply "advance across an open field against a compound defended with multiple MGs using nothing but infantry and 50mm mortars". Oh and maybe one or two light armoured vehicles. Needless to say what the result is.

It seems the light mortars haven't got smoke rounds anymore, not that they would help much since the the enemy would cut my troops down from 10 yards just as well.

I've tried setting up a cover screen by placing all my troops in favorable firing positions, but they never open fire on their own accord, just hit the dirt and stay there. If I direct them to fire at specific enemies, my advancing men get mowed down when a hidden MG reveals itself right next to them but my cover screen keeps sniping at some crewmen 200 yards away.

Light armor usually gets shocked and routed in a matter of seconds when advancing in front, and I've yet to kill an AT gun from the front. The armor never hits it before dying from the first or second shot, and the infantry don't even fire at the damn things.

The final insult comes from the scoring system. It seems no matter how many victory locations I take, the casualties are always so great the enemy get 2-3 times the points that all of the victory locations together are worth. So much for the standard Soviet tactics ("Use up the rifle infantry, the dead cost nothing").

So either the battles I tried are severely unbalanced, or then there is some trick to assaulting with infantry in CMBB I haven't mastered yet. Should I use "Arc" when covering my advance? Should the advancing troops use "Assault", "Advance" or "Run"? Is it a good idea to use area fire instead of direct fire? How can I limit my losses against enemy MGs and still capture the targets in time?

I'm not complaining though, the sights and sounds (do all the forces have authentic spoken dialogue, even the Rumanians?) make it a worthwhile time getting my ass kicked back to Berlin.

[Silvio Manuel]

Definitely use Area Fire to suppress any spotted enemies, even when they go back to the generic symbol.

Once you are in contact w/ the enemy, don't use Run anymore. Use Move, or Advance to cross open ground (advance means that you will fire a bit more), never use Run crossing open ground against unsuppressed foes, you won't fire while doing so and your exposure is greatly increased = dead men.

Use tons of area fire w/ those vehicle MGs...try to use one or two split squads at first to cross open ground, then hammer targets w/ area fire, preferably from MGs, and mortars, or direct fire HE rounds from AFV. You can also use light vehicles to try and draw anti-armor fire, but those anti-tank rifles may allow the enemy to keep it's AT guns hidden for your heavier vehicles.

To sum up: HAMMER all targets w/ all available means. Use Advance to cross open ground (don't RUN!). I'm sure there's tons of other basics that I'm missing here...

[Peterk]

The experts might disagree with me here...

> Should I use "Arc" when covering my advance?

The arc command is more useful for the defender to set up kill-zones. I wouldn't go haywire with the arc command on attack unless you find your guys are firing at things you rather they ignore (like broken units to the rear). Then throw up an arc to focus their attention where _you_ want want.

> Should the advancing troops

> use "Assault",

No, only if you're 10-20 meters away from a dug in enemy and you want to take over the position in close-combat. Otherwise don't assault.

> "Advance"

If there isn't much cover and you absolutely have to go through open ground and spend a considerable amount of time exposed, then yes, advance is the way to go. Don't try to advance too far at one go (> 50-60 m.) or your guys will get exhausted. If you have to go farther than that, then do it in spurts (advance half of platoon (yes, stopping in the open), provide cover for other half, and then advance to cover on the next turn).

If you are in a forest and you suspect the defender is also in the same forest waiting for you, then consider using Engage/Move To Contact. They will advance 'til they are shot at and will then drop. If you're in good cover for the entire path, then you don't have to worry about your guys stopping in bad cover. Never use Move To Contact in the open with infantry.

> or "Run"?

If you're in cover and you see other nearby cover that you want to occupy, then "yes" you can try a run. The farther the distance between cover, the worse decision it is to run (because you get tired and you'll probably get shot up very badly).

> Is it a good idea to use area fire instead of

> direct fire?

Depends on the situation. If you're covering an infantry advance and you just want to keep the defender from shooting; if you don't want your shooter to abandon the area if the defender goes hidden, then area fire is the way to go - even with tank fire. If you want to kill/rout the defender then you can try direct, but the area of effect is less for direct fire.

> How can I limit my losses against enemy MGs

Supress them before exposing your men to them. Play the movie, selecting the enemy MG and watch it from his point of view (on views 1-3). Check out how long he spends on his stomach and how many spurts of fire he gets off. If he never goes down, pretty much don't even think of advancing into the open against him. Do this with all known enemy units which you consider dangerous. Looking at the enemy from the larger views (6-8) doesn't really give you a good idea for how suppressed the defender is - you have to get close. You may have to really gang up on an enemy MG to finally make him decide to hit the dirt.

> and still capture the targets in time?

I can't answer this one! There are hard decisions to be made during a battle where you may have to be less cautious and throw caution to the wind to meet the deadline. Work out a schedule of objectives before starting the scenario (example: by turn 10 you want to be halfway to the target - by turn 20, all attacking units should be in position for the final assault - by turn 28 the target should be in your hands) so that you can tell when you're in time trouble as quickly as possible. This lets you react quickly to the things that are holding you up and hopefully gets you back on track before it's too late.

[tlassila]

Originally posted by Peterk:

> How can I limit my losses against enemy MGs

Supress them before exposing your men to them.

This works to an extent, but I have to keep switching targets for the MGs by hand between the turns and there's always one or two that nobody seems to be targetting who end up shooting my advancing squads to bits.

[spoilers]

Take for example, "Hill 312". How on earth are the Germans supposed to take all three objectives in 25 turns? First of all there's a wooden MG bunker, which means you have to go waaay round the left. That takes at least five turns to go around and get into position alone.

The four MGs help in keeping the enemies in the trenches down. But there's something like two full-strength platoons up that hill plus some hidden squads in the woods. One reserve platoon arrives later but there's a minefield between them and the enemy, most of the Germans rout under fire and become ineffective for the rest of the battle and so on.

I tried to conserve my forces, concentrate fire, keep the MGs covering etc. and still lost it in 20 turns with 50% casualties and 400 points for the Soviets for my losses alone. I never came close to taking any of the flags.

[Fishu]

If you can afford, mortars makes up for great tool when assaulting enemy positions.

50mm mortars doesn't do much more than make the enemy curse, but 81-82mm mortars causes enemy to duck for cover, which is off their firing time and therefore also assaulting troops will be able to fire more at the position when they aren't suppressed by constant fire.

[Agua]

There's a bit of a discussion on "Hill 321" in the "Tips and Tricks" section of the forum in the thread "How do I attack trenches" or something like that.

I figured at first you were talking about Cemetary Hill and wanted to tell you to not get discouraged by that scenario. I've been playing CM for close to two years and after 5 attempts on that scenario, I scored no better than a minor victory. A very few folks have reported scoring a Major Victory on that scenario, but I've come to the conclusion that there's a good deal of luck involved in that as I've tried identical approaches and just get mauled. It's just plain hard.

Hill 321 on the other hand can be beaten quite handily, and its quite a good training scenario for learning CMBB infantry trench assault tactics. Go read some of the posts in the thread I mentioned in the first paragraph of this post.

[MikeyD]

Hey, if you've got lots of infantry to waste you could try running the mg out of ammo by giving him too many targets to kill! It won't endear you to the troops but this might actually be doable if you're facing a light mg with it limited ammo load. And when a heavy mg gets overused it tends to jam for several turns, which gives you the opportunity to advance against it.

A less brutal method would involve sending your men on long walks if you've got the time and map area. Broad flanking maneuvers to keep out of multi-gun crossfires.

[ October 15, 2002, 02:38 PM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

[Silvio Manuel]

tlassila,

Try this page, it has my AAR for Hill 312 as well as some other good comments:

Hill 312 AAR (spoilers)

[Peterk]

Hi again Tlasila,

I spent an evening on hill 312 to see what exactly you were having trouble with (and whether I had what it takes to even give advice on here).

This scenario can be very easily beaten but you have to be _very_ careful on the early turns.

=========== POSSIBLE SPOILERS

One thing to keep in mind. The very small scenarios with less than a company of infantry are often more "puzzles" than anything else and can be more frustrating to play than the more typical scenarios where you can make a mistake or two and recover rather easily. In Hill 321, if you goof big-time with one of your 2 platoons, you're just not going to win. You must absolutely get practically every squad you own to the top of the hill in good order to have a chance.

If you want to read my AAR, it's on the thread which SIlvio added a link to.

[geozero]

Does ADVANCE & HIDE provide any additional benefits? I would think you can advance 40-50 meters and then hide should be better than not hiding at all. But I'm not sure how the AI models this.

When you hide, does the Computer AI lose contact with you or will it contiune to fire on your position?