suggestion for assault, also a split squad bug?

[slug88]

Not sure if this has been discussed before, but this is something that has been causing unnecessary casualities and frustration in my games. I'm referring to the AI's behavior when plotting an assault movement over a long distance. Over short distances, assault works exactly as intended; one team covers from the current position while another rushes to the waypoint. However, when the assault point is farther than 50m or so, the first team will stop before reaching the end point, and will wait for the supporting team to catch up, then begin the assault again. This can result in such things as the assaulting team stopping in an area completely exposed to enemy fire, and invariably losing men and getting pinned while waiting for the covering team to move up. My suggestion is that intermediate points should be left completely up to the player; if I want the teams to bound between houses every 50m, i can simply use multiple waypoints. If I want one team to advance 500m under overwatch of another team, I want to have this ability without splitting squads, simply because it's less micromanagement for me to worry about. What do you all think about this issue?

Also, regarding splitting squads, I've noticed that when a split squad is recombing, it often loses it's association with it's platoon. That is, the platoon HQ will no longer have that squad listed as one of it's subordinate formations, and the squad no longer has communications with the platoon hq, or any hq, for that matter. I've seen this happen since 1.01, but I thought it was fixed with 1.06. Anyone else seeing this in 1.07?

One last thing, I only recently discovered something very neat with the assault command and team splitting. We all know that generally squads split into two teams when assaulting. Playing around with US MOUT infantry, however, I found that these squads actually split into three teams, assaulting one at a time. Now I am really intrigued about the kind of subtle squad behaviors like this that may be used to differentiate between different forces in the upcoming expansions.

[c3k]

slug88,

Excellent suggestion, regarding bounds.

[slug88]

bump

[salwon]

From the US Army's "INFANTRY PLATOON OFFENSIVE OPERATIONS" manual:

{regarding the 'manuever' element of 'Fire and Maneuver'}:

b. Short rushes from cover to cover may be used when enemy fire allows brief exposure. Men rush singly, in pairs, or by fire teams in 3- to 5-second rushes. A rush is kept short to keep the enemy machine gunners from tracking rushing men. Men should not hit the ground in the open just because they have been up for 5 seconds. They must look for cover before starting the rush and then head straight to the new position.

It seems like assault as it is now implemented just goes for the 5-second rule. Would it be possible to implement the order so that the maneuver element rushes to cover, instead of just advancing for X amount of time?

Of course, such an order is only necessary when advancing a single squad, and the argument in this case could be made for just splitting the squads and managing their movements yourself. But still, a PL shouldn't HAVE to tell Sgt Johnson to run for the trees, and not to just lie down in the field...