Minimizing surprises

[bongotastic]

Hi,

I'm brand new to the CM series, and just bought SF. I'd like to know how to minimize the effect of surprise on unit survivability. For example, a squad is told to sprint up an alley, there is an undetected MG team opening up and kill half the squad right away. The other half just keep on running into the incoming fire and die a few seconds later.

What is your trick to react to surprises like that? Is there some way to set a SOP, or use one movement type which make the survivors react more conservatively?

C

[bigmac1281]

A couple tips I've picked up and work well.

First of all, this is all based in wego (turn based) gameplay. I don't play RT.

1) If you want your troops to return fire, try giving them Quick moves in 20m increments. (quick is probably the best movement speed. They move "quick" but don't tire as fast as they do when moving "fast") They stop at each waypoint and regroup, and the guys who are stopped will return fire if they know where it's coming from. It takes a long time to move from A to B, but your guys are a lot safer when moving this way.

2) Always have overwatch for any movement. If one unit is moving, another unit should be watching them like a hawk, preferably with a targeting arc on suspected enemy positions.

3) In addition to overwatch, cover fire on probable enemy positions is very beneficial as well. Area fire where you think the enemy is while your troops are moving. This will keep their heads down and stop them from firing on your moving troops. NOTE: If you only have 2 units (1 moving and 1 covering) , it's preferable in my experience to focus on overwatch rather than covering fire. Covering fire is great, but if your instict was wrong and the enemy isn't where you think he is, your guys will be firing at an empty building when the real enemy pops up and mows down your moving element.

All 3 of these tips should increase your moving element's survivability. To recap: Move in short 20m Quick moves. They will stop regularly and return fire if needed. Have a unit on overwatch, they will open up on anyone who threatens the moving element. Have a unit laying down covering fire for the advancing element.

Hope these tips help.

p.s. Another tip that I just thought of, keep your HQ's close to your frontline troops. C2 is important for relaying contact information.

Example 1: 1st platoon, 1st squad is moving down a street,1st platoon, 2nd squad is providing overwatch. 1st squad comes under fire, but 2nd squad doesn't know where it's coming from. 1st squad is wiped out.

Example 2: 1st platoon, 1st squad is moving down a street, 1st platoon 2nd squad and 1st platoon HQ is providing overwatch. 1st squad comes under fire, relays the information to 1st platoon HQ, who tells 2nd squad where they are. 2nd squad opens up on the threat, and 1st squad survives.

I used to always keep the HQ units safe in rear buildings. But since I started bringing them up with the troops, I've noticed the relaying of enemy positions is much faster between units, and as such survivability on the frontline increases.

For the best results, try to keep the HQ units within visual range of the squads they control. This isn't possible most of the time, but if it is, it drastically increases the relaying of enemy positions both within the platoon, and to other platoons as well.

As such, try to attack in platoon strength. Keep your platoons together. Those within the same platoon will always relay contact information to eachother faster than they can relay it to other platoons.

p.p.s. With all of this said, war is messy. Sometimes no matter how careful you are, no matter how much overwatch and covering fire you have, one lucky RPG will ruin your day.

[ December 01, 2007, 01:56 PM: Message edited by: bigmac1281 ]

[bongotastic]

This is a great reply, thanks. Now, back to Syria...

[Thomm]

Originally posted by bongotastic:

What is your trick to react to surprises like that? Is there some way to set a SOP, or use one movement type which make the survivors react more conservatively?

I use assault wherever possible. It works really nice and tends to keep more soldiers alive than other movement types!

Best regards,

Thomm

[handihoc]

Great tips, BigMac. I like the 20m incremental movement, giving the opportunity to return fire if necessary. I'll test that.

Also HQs. Like you, I generally keep them somewhat to the rear. I'll start moving them up with the squads now and see how much difference it makes.

Both those points, assuming they work as you say, are fine illustrations of how subtle this game can be. I'm discovering more and more in SF as I play - I just wish these details had been fully covered in the manual. Then again, it's nice to find surprises so many weeks down the road.

A tip I would add: make good use of smoke wherever possible, to move in close on the enemy, or simply to change position safely. Inf carry a limited amount, but vehicles are great for quickly providing total smoke cover to hide inf movement.

Also, if your squad is equipped with demo-charges, use the Blast command to avoid open spaces and/or take an enemy position. It has the advantage of surprise and stun. I find it really effective.

One more tip, position your inf a reasonable distance from vehicles. If a vehicle takes a major hit, it's curtains for anyone else nearby. This can also apply if your inf target an enemy vehicle at very close quarters.

[ December 01, 2007, 03:31 PM: Message edited by: handihoc ]

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[handihoc]

Just to add one point about using smoke, which I hope will get fixed soon: make sure your inf or vehicle are facing in the direction you want the smoke. Unless I've missed something there's no command to target smoke, so it will always go wherever the squad or vehicle happens to be looking, which may not be the direction you want cover.

[bongotastic]

I used the short legs between waypoints, thorough overwatch, to keep my Plt together, move the HQ within the Plt and used the assault movement type. It worked quite well. Thanks to all.

I tried to use smoke, but there must be something that I'm not doing right with the interface: in one case they smoked after crossing the alley, and in the other, the Bradley just didn't smoke at all. I'm sure that I'll figure out what I did wrong by playing around.

Christian

[bigmac1281]

I used to like assault movement, but not anymore. The fireteams bound waaaaaay too far when moving in assault movement, sometimes completely out of sight of one another. You can simulate the assault movement by breaking them into two teams, and then giving both 20m bounding points, and one team a 15 second wait at the beginning. Works in a similar fashion, but they don't get so spread apart as they do in Assault. I regularly do this at the squad level, rather than fireteam level. Have 2 squads doing bounding overwatch. Very effective.

Smoke can be very useful, but it's buggy. I don't quite understand why they didn't give us a targeting line for smoke, like they do for targeting and moving. In RT I'm sure it's easy to give a face order, then a smoke order, but in wego, that'd mean giving a face order, waiting a minute, then giving a smoke order. Waiting 2 minutes for smoke? Not very good.

[bigmac1281]

BTW, one more tip. Don't bunch up. This is something I always find myself having to work on, cause I always end up bunching up and it always gets my boys killed.

Keep a good distance between squads, if possible. If they're too close (if you can't easily tell who is in what squad, they're too close) then fire on one squad will supress both squads. Keeping them apart will allow the squad that is not under fire to return fire.

Additionally, you may end up having to write many pretend letters to many pretend mothers when 1 IED takes out an entire platoon like what just happened to me in game. Nothing quite drops your jaw to the floor as well as seeing an entire platoon taken out by someone with a cell phone.

[ December 02, 2007, 12:49 AM: Message edited by: bigmac1281 ]

[DaveDash]

Others have given you some very handy tips - but they've left out one important thing I feel.

Planning. You actually need to plan your attack so things like having to cross alleys where there may be machineguns simply dont happen.

As the game is currently modelled, as the U.S. play you absolutely need as many men as possible to survive. Vehicles, mission depending of course, are somewhat more expendable.

That means though that always always always make sure your squads move through cover, be it smoke or real, and always make sure they can support each other.

Be careful with overwatch, sometimes vehicles or squads overwatching won't do diddly squat if the enemy units are on a reverse slope position or a different elevation. I find its MUCH more reliable just to blow the hell out of everywhere the enemy may be hiding and then take your objectives.

This is not some sort of heroic movie. U.S. infantry is good, but caught in a knife fight the Syrians will take you apart. There is no shame in blowing them to kingdom come to begin with before even getting your men in any danger with atillery, tank fire, and Bradley fire. Bradleys are excellent at destroying buildings and fortified positions.

I'm also going to go a different path for movement. Approaching buildings, if you must without cover, you definately should use quick. You want to get your men in that building as quickly as possible. If they're shot at, dont worry, they'll return fire.

However, i find it is often better to use 'hunt' when in buildings especially or if you suspect the ground floor is occupied with enemy troops.

Also dont rush your men around like Delta from place to place. Normally you have more than enough time in each scenario and you can afford to have your infantry squads sit for a bit when taking hostile buildings. Often after a couple of turns someone will spot some enemy units hiding on a roof, or that machine gunner might be detected.

Now as for splitting squads, again I find overwatch to be largely useless in this game. Vehicles/Units are bugged to hell and tend to be useless at overwatch. So don't split your squads while attacking. You NEED all the momentum you can get and the object is to find the enemy and defeat his defenses in detail. If you split your squads, yes you have more control, but the chances of YOU being defeated in detail are much higher. E.G. moving a squad of 5 onto a roof and most of them get cut down by fires from surrounding buildings, and you're left with another 4 who will get cut down. Woop de do. But given U.S. firepower if you moved all 9 onto the roof they probaby would have destroyed the enemy, albiet with casualties, but you now have a strongpoint.

Defending however - yes - split your squads.

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[Omenowl]

I tend to use hunt and to break squads up. The problem is 10 guys do stranger things than 5. Smoke has never quite worked for me for infantry so I rarely use it (vehicle smoke I use all the time especially when dismounting).

Make sure your squads can provide suppressive fire for each other. This means putting soldiers on rooftops to provide overwatch and generally moving at a slow pace so the rest of the platoon can help suppress any enemies found. Your machine guns along with vehicles are some of the best to provide suppressive fire.

Also your men depending on the amount of ammo they have will fire accordingly. I almost always give my men full ammo. It makes them tire more quickly, but I found they will blaze away with much more intensity.

If one group gets bogged down just leave them in place. Don't force them forward as you will just get them killed. Flank or try to bring troops from a different direction to help clear an entrenched enemy.

Finally for the antitank weapons I usually leave the team with them furthest back It is much easier and safer to have a javelin fire from a far range and it is less affected by range than bullets.

[Huntarr]

I used to like assault movement, but not anymore. The fireteams bound waaaaaay too far when moving in assault movement, sometimes completely out of sight of one another

If you need to reduce the distance between assault bounds you can add a waypoint to the distance you want them to bound at.

[bigmac1281]

I kind of disagree with the "don't split your squads" thing. I also disagree with the "overwatch is useless" thing. Vehicles are not as good as overwatch as perhaps they should be, but you can remedy that somewhat by having the commander turn out. Infantry however are quite good at overwatch.

I use a lot of recon. For this, I split an assault team off of one squad and move it a couple hundred meters in front of the main body. Infantry I find are quite good at overwatch, and usually when the recon fireteam comes under fire, the rest of the infantry are quite good at returning fire.

By splitting the recon team off, you take less losses when it is engaged than you would if you sent the whole squad forward, in my opinion. And I believe the recon element is detected less if it's a half squad, than a full one.

One thing I don't like about splitting squads is it seems to be a little buggy. Half of the time I can't get the teams to rejoin into a squad when I want to. And it seems that when you split the squad, only one of the two teams gets a radio, so one team is completely in the dark if they get too far separated.

I agree with the blowing up everything that looks suspicious part though. I use javelins for this, mostly. At the beginning of the attack, I always level anything that immediately shows up with a question mark on it.

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[Webwing]

Originally posted by Adam1:

I edited the Hammertime scenario and gave blue a motorized infantry battalion. The enemy has some BMP-2s in semi-keyholes. The best counter on offense available to the infantry bn are the RPG teams; These consist in 2 man rpg teams which ideally can sneak into a firing position. I have not yet had much luck getting them into position, but the worst thing is that if the first round misses generally the BMP dispatches the team. I find using a handful of teams and coordinating the first wave of RPGs kinda helps. Really hard though.

Could you upload that to CMODs ? I'd like to give it try. I like to avoid armor as much as possible. I could edit as well but since this was such a popular scenario other people would like to give it a go too. George Mc wouldn't mind I think as long as there is credit.

I'm taking notes of everything in this thread!!! Really great stuff in here. Best thread so far.

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[ December 02, 2007, 01:36 PM: Message edited by: Webwing ]

[bigmac1281]

No tips for sneaking anti tank teams around from me. I stick to Javelins, and engage from a good kilometer or more away. Only played Syrians once, and had absolutely no luck with RPG's. Killed off all of the American infantry, but then it was me against one remaining Abrams, and he systematically finished off all of my RPG teams.

My impression is that dealing with armour with RPG's or AT4's relies heavily on surprise and ambush tactics. If you're detected before you fire, you're dead.

Wouldn't mind some tips on that myself.

[DaveDash]

Originally posted by bigmac1281:

[QB] I kind of disagree with the "don't split your squads" thing. I also disagree with the "overwatch is useless" thing. Vehicles are not as good as overwatch as perhaps they should be, but you can remedy that somewhat by having the commander turn out. Infantry however are quite good at overwatch.

There are definately times to split your squads, but my experiances in that assaulting fortified positions is not usually the time to do it.

It's personal preference really, the much higher control of squads by splitting really is handy from time to time (minus the bugs), I'll conceed that.

Infantry does make better overwatch than vehicles but there are still bugs with both.

Try having a vehicle overwatch for infantry assaulting units either in a trench or on top of a building. Generally your units overwatching will sit around doing jack. This is a big problem in missions like Hammertime or that campaign mission with the Powerstation and field assaults. Buttoned or no buttoned it doesnt matter. Besides, I tend to use lots of target arcs which should make vehicles significantly better, but it doesn't.

By splitting the recon team off, you take less losses when it is engaged than you would if you sent the whole squad forward, in my opinion. And I believe the recon element is detected less if it's a half squad, than a full one.

My experiences are completely the opposite. You're going to get detected most of the time anyway - unless you are crawling - and with half the guys you generally get cut down and surpressed easier. On the flip side if you walk into a really bad situation you're going to lose 5 guys instead of 9.

Again I think there is a time and place for both, and close assaulting buildings - which is what we're talking about in this topic - its often better to do it with as much mass as possible.