Assaulting a building fierce and agille.

[Chainsaw]

OK ive seen a few threads in this place discussing how to best clear a house and which problems they had doing it so I thought I would add my way to do it.

The scenario I use here dont have any enemys on nor is it the best scenario to show on, but its betther then nothing and you will get the idea.

1. Suppression.

First, supress the building you want to attack to get the enemy initially pinned down. Also make sure to erase or pinn down any building that can posses enemy units wich might affect your attack.

On this pic you can see the assault force on the left in the 2 strykers on the road, and the supportive force on their right, all units are firing with ewerything they got on different areas of the building so they can pin any enemy unit in the building.

2. Getting to the objective.

Here I use the way Huntarr showed in one of hes tactics threads. One thing ive done here is that when the stryker is turning it will pop smoke so to cut of the LOS for enemy units on the left flank. (yeah I know vehicles shouldnt be able to smoke but as we dont have smoke on mortars...)

Notice that the last waypoint the stryker dont have any area fire to do, this is so he can start engaging any enemy that pops up later on.

[Chainsaw]

3. Squads attack route.

This is how I have routed the squad, using a "bug"* in the game as I see as a good replacement for the AI stupiditiy.

First I have a quick route to outside the door as dismount order, from that waypoint I have put "area fire" into first floor. Be aware when doing this the squad are firing anything they got, and use handgrenades as hell.

From that they have "assault" command from floor to floor, and on each waypoint have area fire on next floor. This will result in one team suppressing next floor while the other team attacks it.

4. The attack

here the stryker have popped smoke (a bit to close as you can see, smoking the attack area as well, but it works) and are dismounting the infantry squad while the 2nd stryker are passing by taking next house in the row.

here you can see how the infantry is working its way up. And note that it has used up all its handgrenades already.

This method of assault is aggresive, suppresing and succesful. I get werry low casualtys with this method, but its only to be used against buildings you know contains enemys as it eats allot of the handgrenades and ammo. If you dont need to own the house or ROE allows its you can just flatten the building with HE, but if you need to TAKE the building this is a good way to do.

* own units cant kill or suppress own units with grenades and direct fire.

Hope this helped someone atleast

/Chainsaw

[akd]

Is there a menu or keyboard shortcut to issue a different command from the last waypoint/action? Half the time when I try to mouse click on a waypoint or targeting line, my unit gets deselected and I have to reselect to try again to get the last waypoint/action active to enter my next command, rinse and repeat until I click on the magic spot that selects the last command. It makes issueing complex movement + suppressing fire plans like the above very difficult to setup.

[meade95]

Thanks for this write -up -

So do I have this correct? There is no "blue on blue" casualties in CMSF - When using surpress or direct fire orders...??

[Chainsaw]

Atleast I havent managed that, When I played Red on Red I actually got own casualtys from supporting fire, I start to belive its thanks to Blues constant body armour?

Anyway, when I wrote supress I meant by light caliber ammo, up to 40mm AGL that is, I havent tryed with stryker and abrams ammo, but that large HE is overkill just for suppresion, they are betther tasked for destroying enemy forces.

[slug88]

There is no friendly fire from small arms or grenads in Shock Force. Everything from RPG's up will cause friendly fire.

[Huntarr]

OUTSTANDING! It brings a tear to this ole Gunny's eye the way you push them doggies around, Chainsaw. Hell it looks like ya'll do just fine when you get some Hard Chargin Devil Dawgs to let loose on this har war.

Great Tutorial

[Chainsaw]

Thank you sir! Those Devil Dogs gonna annhilitate whatever they meet sir!

[Pandur]

hm, well, not to belittle anything or anyone here, but when i see a area fire command at every waypoint and in every floor of the house, what do i think!?

thats the most gamey and at the same time simple aproach to assault a house and there is really nothing special about it. area fire combined with a vehicle rush is the key here it seems.

i mean do it that way if you like it, but if i had to use such methods in my game "regulary" i would consider quiting it, as its far from "realistic" or fun.

its not like i tried it that way too, but hell its so cheap, its no fun, it feels more like cheating. after all why can i enter a house wich is plastered by small arms and .50 from the outside, the enemys are supressed up to the point they panic and your own guys are "not affected" and pic of cowering guys one by one? thats why i said "cheat".

however, its a good way to over exploit RED´s weaknesses(low moral) and game mecanics.

thanks,

[Chainsaw]

Pandur, ite because the whole engine dont work as real life. If battlefront would allow friendly fire/suppresion they would have to do a whole lot of coding on houseclearing with seperated rooms and all that instead of have it "behind the scenes".

When you enter a building where you know you got enemys you blast it to hell. when I did my MOUT training as a M240 gunner we didnt ewen bother entering a room unless we tossed atleast one handgrenade thrue the door, and the moment it blasted we entered and raked the room with 7.62 from my M240 before we declared it safe and a new team enters to move to next door and continue.

In other words for ewery room, door hallway, stairs etc we entering there is suppresive fire in form of handgrenades, flashbangs and handweapons and machine gun fire to make sure the enemy cant fight back. Its this im reproducing in CMSF by this way.

Not really gamey in any way, I see it more as a replacer for the AIs inability to clear a house the real way.

/Chainsaw

[Pandur]

Pandur, ite because the whole engine dont work as real life. If battlefront would allow friendly fire/suppresion they would have to do a whole lot of coding on houseclearing with seperated rooms and all that instead of have it "behind the scenes".

/Chainsaw

it was said once that they had implemented the effect of supression through friendly fire when the fire was aimed at the same house/tile the man where in. means you plaster a building you enter(from a different tile) and your man get supressed inside, wich is reasonable. however they took it out, i dont know what reason lead to this decission.

that means you could still run through fireing lanes and sectors but no hassle for the AI other than to tell it to not shoot a tile where friendly inf is located.

i would really like to know why it wasnt kept in...

also its good that the army trains you to throw a handgranade(falash or whatever) into a room befor you enter but thats no rocket sience and the enemy could probably try to do that too or keep you from doing it.

means, as it works out in the game, it is resulting in a effect the "field manual" couldnt present better, but it shouldnt work "that" good if the enemy is "acting" too and not represented by paper plates, and not to forgett noone sprayes the building constantly from the outside than.

however, that said, i undestand where you are comming from and what your justification is to use it that agressive, but it shows that you try to get the game to do something it cant do, and you have to work around that by useing area fire, wich i still consider gamey in that form.

again, no pun intended, that how i see it.

[meade95]

Pandur, ite because the whole engine dont work as real life. If battlefront would allow friendly fire/suppresion they would have to do a whole lot of coding on houseclearing with seperated rooms and all that instead of have it "behind the scenes".

When you enter a building where you know you got enemys you blast it to hell. when I did my MOUT training as a M240 gunner we didnt ewen bother entering a room unless we tossed atleast one handgrenade thrue the door, and the moment it blasted we entered and raked the room with 7.62 from my M240 before we declared it safe and a new team enters to move to next door and continue.

In other words for ewery room, door hallway, stairs etc we entering there is suppresive fire in form of handgrenades, flashbangs and handweapons and machine gun fire to make sure the enemy cant fight back. Its this im reproducing in CMSF by this way.

Not really gamey in any way, I see it more as a replacer for the AIs inability to clear a house the real way.

/Chainsaw

I agree competely with this - Not gamey - Simply offsetting some of the limitations currently with CMSF - To make it more realistic -

[Chainsaw]

I agree with meade95 that agrees with me (ehum?)

Pandur, I truly HATE gamey things, and I dont use any possible cheats etc. However what we have here is a engine that gives us limitations and posibilitys and as it is right now you cant get the AI to clear a house as the way they are supposed to.

To send your troops in under "assualt" only leads them to do bounding overwatch without firing, wich leads to when they enter a building they dont shot first, but get shot at first.

entering a enemy building without firing your way into it means you are asking to become Number 2, and we know that number 2 means dead, therefore you shoot your way in to be Number 1 in the situation.

If you can provide a betther solution then attack with area fire that isnt "gamey" in your view im glad to prove it out, but:

1.must have bounding overwatch

2.must fire into ewery "room" they are clearing and tosing grenades

3. Minimize my own casualtys.

So if you can, then I will adapt and use it, but as long as we dont have a "clear room" command I cant concider "my way" to be Gamey really.

"also its good that the army trains you to throw a handgranade(falash or whatever) into a room befor you enter but thats no rocket sience and the enemy could probably try to do that too or keep you from doing it."

-Eh yepp, several times when I tossed a grenade into a room I was greeted with a enemy grenade flying out to me, in that situation you are number 2 no matther what.

lucky me it was only practice grenades!

/Chainsaw

[Chainsaw]

Pandur, i just re-read the whole thread and noticed that one of your points of irritation is that you can go into a building where you have suppresing fire on it and you can move around in a building while own units (small caliber) are suppresing it. (and you think im doing it)

Thats indeed a "gamey" feature and I dont use it, I shift my supportive fire when the infantry are entering the buildings to new locations or giving supportive units covering arc on the attacking building so they can engage eny popping up. Reason is simply - I wouldnt do that in real life as it would kill my troops.

I actually thought I wrote it in the first post but when re-reading it i discover I apperently didnt.

Im gonna sit down and take some new and betther ingame pics and rewrite the posts a bit so it all becomes a bit clearer.

/Chainsaw

Edit: apparently I cant edit posts that are so old, so guys have to read the whole thread thrue.

/Chain

[meade95]

Chainsaw -

I, myself, would be interested in a little more detail about exacly what orders you give your infantry when assualting / clearing a house...........Do you split your teams....(or do so automatically via the Assault order)........What exact orders do you give....target orders, etc.....

[Chainsaw]

On the Strykers:

1.

I give them plenty of waypoint "breaks" (those white triangels) to be able to give them different areas to fire at/directions to observe.

If I want them to fire at different locations I use area target "TARGET".

If I want them to Observe a area I give COVER ARC command from ewery waypoint.

WHY?

- Target area suppresses enemys while you advance to target.

- Cover arc focuses the crews attention to a specific area wich makes them react quicker and it also means the 50 cal/40AGL is already pointed in the "right" direction

2. on the almost last waypoint I give SMOKE command (if I need it tacticly) to have the last waypoint free.

WHY?

-Deny enemy observers/weapons LOS on my dismounting infantry thats ****ing bunched up.

3.Last waypoint is always COWER ARC against the building.

WHY?

-enabling the stryker to directly engage targets the attacking infantry locates.

4. If the area is RPG heavy I might on the last waypoint put a PAUSE 15SEC order and then REVERSE off the area.

WHY?

-Get the Stryker out of the RPG area

-Get betther LOS for the .50/40mm. on last waypoint after reverse the stryker will have a COVER ARC against the building im attacking.

On the infantry:

1.already inside the vehicle I give the squad area fire on the 1st floor of the building. first waypoint of the stryker is set just a few meter behind the stryker and its QUICK.

WHY?

-the MGs in the squad can help suppres the enemy

-the squad starts to fire directly when dismounting, helping themself survive

-QUICK is betther then FAST as on FAST they are less likely to engage discovered enemys

2.From the first waypoint after dismounting I put them on ATTACK into the building and ewery new floor has a own waypoint.

WHY?

-Squad splits up, one supports, the other rush into the building and chassing up the enemy.

-if you only put ONE waypoint from 1st to 3rd floor the squad will be split into 2 teams and one team will run all the way up to the 3rd floor, you MUST have a waypoint peer roof.

3.Area fire from ewery waypoint. From the first waypoint after dismounting its the 1st floor.

When entering and "taking" the 2nd waypoint its 2nd floor that gets area fired.

WHY?

-when putting squad on ATTACK they split up in 2 teams and dont merge untill next waypoint.

-One team suppresses the floor with handgrenades, MGs, M203s while 2nd team rushes. When 2nd team reaches first floors waypoint it stops up and starts area firing around itself on 1st floor. when 1st team joins up the whole squad starts firing on 2nd floor and 2nd teams starts to run for 2nd floor.

on last waypoint you need a COVER ARC command to get them to stop area firing, put that arc in the area you think are most likely will contain enemys.

The most important stages in the assault is when you start dismounting untill you have taken the 1st floor. untill you have taken 1st floor you MUST have TARGET as command.

When you are continuing to clear the house you can use TARGET LIGHT on the other floors as that conserves the handgrenades/M203s.

If you want any more advices I can create a save file with all moves in and you can just watch how i did etc. Let me know

/Chainsaw

[dima]

If you want any more advices I can create a save file with all moves in and you can just watch how i did etc. Let me know

/Chainsaw

Chainsaw, it would be awesome if you could create a savefile! It would definitely help a lot of people (myself included) to see exactly the way this should be done.

[meade95]

I would love to see a save-file as well - That would be great -

ARe you playing Real-Time (not WEGO). Correct.

[Chainsaw]

OK will fix it.

Nopp, Im playing Wego!

/Chain

[Chainsaw]

OK fixed it.

Changed 2 things in the SOP:

1. The infantry dont have a QUICK command for dismounting, they have ATTACK command now

2. The waypoint outside the building is gone, the infantry attack directly into the building.

I have enemy infantry in this scenario, but "unfortunly" all was killed during the suppresion phase of the attack.

https://www.yousendit.com/download/Q01FN3RRQ3R3NUt4dnc9PQ

theres the file!

/Chainsaw

[Pandur]

Pandur, i just re-read the whole thread and noticed that one of your points of irritation is that you can go into a building where you have suppresing fire on it and you can move around in a building while own units (small caliber) are suppresing it. (and you think im doing it)

Thats indeed a "gamey" feature and I dont use it, I shift my supportive fire when the infantry are entering the buildings to new locations or giving supportive units covering arc on the attacking building so they can engage eny popping up. Reason is simply - I wouldnt do that in real life as it would kill my troops.

/Chainsaw

oh, thats good becouse i wasnt able to see how that cant be gamey..., however i didnt wanted to take the discussion any further becouse two fixed opinnions are just that, we both cant just talk away how the other person sees the thing.

so we would just keep saying blah this blahblah that, and at the and of page 3 we would still play the same way as we do now

now i know that it actually was a misunderstanding, and i know now also that ouer playstyles are closer to each other than i thought befor.

[Chainsaw]

now i know that it actually was a misunderstanding, and i know now also that ouer playstyles are closer to each other than i thought befor.

Jolly Good!

(or whatever they say, btw we ARE on page 3 )

[cmfan]

Doh! The link on your file expired Chainsaw.

One question. I'm new to the game I sometimes still have trouble coordinating my troop dismounts. Do you use a pause on a squad's initial dismount movement command so that they don't jump off the their Stryker before it even begins moving to assault?

[Chainsaw]

thats a pitty, on a new computer and that file didnt follow on to the new one

About your question: IF the strykers/vehicles have a Move command (SLOW,HUNT,MOVE,FAST etc) the infantry will not dismount before the vehicle move. They will not dismount untill the vehicle have reach the last waypoint.

Its also safe to give the vehicle paus orders without being afraid for the infantry to dismount. They will stay in the vehicles.

/chainsaw

[cmfan]

Thanks Chainsaw! I kept giving my squads pause commands to be safe - one less thing to worry about.

Great write-up by the way, can't wait to try it out in a scenario.