Assumptions

[rogue187]

For you vets at this game, what assumptions can be made while attacking a village or city? As you may have gathered from my previous posts, I tend to fail the casualty threshold for the US side most of the time. I find that my 2 biggest killers are RPG/ATM and hidden infantry in buildings adjacent to the one I enter. While at range the RPGs/ATMs can take multiple shot to hit, it only takes about one to KO/destroy/immobilize an AFV. When I fight in towns sometimes I will think, well that building has been quiet, so maybe its empty. Move AFV near said building BOOM! RPG that I had no idea was there. Same goes for infantry. Building is quiet, move in quickly, BANG! squad in the adjacent building laying waste to my guys. These are the biggest two problems in the game that I have. The only solution I have found is to target light every building that I can with AFVs, then move in infantry, rinse, repeat. While this works and is effective (I have pinned/killed/broken Syrian squads doing this) it is very slow. With the shorter times in the Marine module for missions, I am trying to move faster but am taking higher losses.

How do you know if a building is empty or has an enemy inside it? When is it safe to assume no or assume yes?

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Clearly, ask yourself: would I want infantry positioned there if I was the opponent? That goes a long way to considering how much suppressive fire to throw down.

Don't be shy about it, you typically have a fair amount of firepower so spread the wealth. Dividing your fire over multiple turns over multiple buildings is IMHO a timesaver as compared to doing so on a per building basis. Safer too.

Also, overwatch is your friend. If an enemy does open up aimed return fire delivered immediately in response goes a long way to take the sting out of any surprises. Obviously RPGs and ATGMs are a different matter as all they need is one hit to deliver a stinging blow to your forces. Keeping your distance should prevent he worst of it in regards to RPGs. ATGMs? Dunno. Making sure it doesn't fire a second shot is as far as I got when dealing with those. Also, it helps to avoid areas that look inviting to deploy your vehicles in, the scenario designer probably had the same idea.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I forgot the old rule of thumb: The higher the building, the better the odds someone is in there. Ever since CMBO players as a matter of course flattened tall buildings. There's a reason for that.

[rogue187]

hmmm. I kinda do and kinda don't use overwatch. While I will designate vechicles or people as overwatch generally I find myself assualting positions that are ? or appear to be empty. The problems that I have with overwatch lie with the LOS/LOF. I find especially with the Marines that the people that are supposed to be overwatch don't see the enemy even though I think they can. This results in my guys going in unsupported. At least keeping light fire on the target building and surrounding buildings at least fire is being laid down and it keeps the Syrians suppressed. I find that if I do overwatch only, the Syrians will fire on my guys before anyone notices them. It seems that more often then not they shoot first on me more so than me on them.

[theFightingSeabee]

While you may or may not want to do this in real life, pump a few rounds into each building, each floor. Many times, the enemy will come out of hiding and return fire. This is called recon by fire. I've found that this is best accomplished with apc's. They have heavier weapons with plenty of ammo. Even if the enemy doesn't show his face, he'll sometimes take casualties and it'll make it that much easier to take.

Urban warfare is known to be bloody. No/little los means you're going to be fighting up close almost always. It's just part of the deal. Sometimes, you just have to make choices. If you have a 4 man squad and a 13 man squad, you can send in the 4. If they get wasted, then you only lost 4. On the other hand, with 13 guys you have a better chance of winning an in-house battle. That's up to you, commander.

[Flanker15]

You've got to be real careful with buildings in CM:SF.

I don't know if it'll be patched but a unit in a building that hasn't fired is almost invisible, even to the best detection systems. They can even run around on the roof and won't be spotted by infantry/tanks/whatever looking right at them a 100m away (they can throw grenades too), units lose this ability if they fire their weapns or are spotted (ussually requires you walk someone into the same room as them).

It makes buildings very dangerous as you can't spot units in them until they shoot at you or you force them to leave with area fire.

[Peter Panzer]

Rogue187

Take heart, not all of the circumstances arrayed against you are realistic.

As you have discovered, v.1.11 of CMSF guarantees an ambushing force 100% concealment and initiative if the are located within a structure. You cannot avoid an ambush in MOUT regardless of the amount of overwatch you deploy or time allocated to observation by AFV's or recon assets.

Here is an example I posted during the first week of January highlighting just how off kilter the current model of spotting in urban terrain is:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=85444&page=7

Employing direct fires against the facade of every suspect building is "gamey" as hell, a waste of virtual ordnance, tactically rigid, boring in terms of gameplay and will assure you of a loss if the scenario calls for a minimum of collateral damage.

Seabee and others are right, recon-by-fire is a valid tactic under some circumstances, but it should not be the only tool available to the player in order to have a chance at preventing an ambush - that is unrealistic, period.

Please let the spotting in MOUT for version 1.2 be tweaked. Locating OPFOR contacts in structures should be difficult, perhaps very difficult, but not impossible all of the time.

So Rogue, while your joining Flanker and I in the please-adjust-MOUT-spotting waiting room, here are a few very general tips you can try to use in the meantime:

• Be patient and drop the ramp on your IFV's/AAV's. Infantry leads the way. Split your teams for maximum overwatch and tactical flexibility. Bring along extra AT-4's/RPG's as HE will be required to reduce hardened positions.
  
• Locate and seize the dominant terrain. Note, this is not always "the tallest building." It may very well be the single story blockhouse that provides LOS/LOF up a key channel.
  
• If at all possible, envelope key OPFOR positions or assault paralell channels simultaneously. Do not allow the OPFOR to safely fall back and kill you later. Even harrasing fire is better than permitting a clean exfiltration.
  
• Deploy your units with 360 degree security in mind. A skilled opponent will stick it up your virtual ass.
  
• Smoke, use it.
  
• Deploy your AFV's in a support role. MBT's and MGS's are particularly desirable as they can be on the scene quickly, lay down heavy fire and do not suffer from request delays like arty or CAS. Do not let them idle in place for minutes on end - ID the target, fire a round and resume cover. You already know where a decent opponent will jam your armor if you are not mindful of their limits in MOUT.

[MikeyD]

Assume your full-up AFV will be destroyed with everyone on board. Assume the enemy can see you. Assume you're at 'the tip of the spear' where all bad things happen. There's no rule that says you MUST drive straight down that particular road. People seem to have this overwhelming urge to do the obvious when playing a scenario (which makes life much easier for us scenario designers ). The result usually is kill stats on par with Wellington at Waterloo. The best-played game is when you've achieved your objective and the enemy couldn't get a shot off.

[cabal23]

My only issue with recon fire is that with rules of engagement would unlikely allow you to machine gun every building in the hope that one has a hidden enemy in it. I know this has been brought up as gamey. I really do wish there was a way to encourage rules of engagement and score based on that. An example would be losing points for firing on civilian positions. Perhaps creating a unit like the spy that is a civilian. One more aspect of realism that would be awesome. The only way I see to accomplish this now is to set the intel to a high level for the Blue forces, giving the Blue player those cool little question marks showing where it is likely that Red forces are stationed. This could represent snipers scoping out the building or town hours if not days before the scenario takes place.

[Meach]

The back story states that America took a dirty nuke in a major city. I don't think the rules of war are going to be enforced too rigidly as for the next 1000 years, downtown Chicago/Los Angeles/Pittsburgh is a radiated no-go zone.

I think it would be a case of all's fair in love and dirty nukes.

[cabal23]

Good point. But I doubt we would go gunning down civs in their home regardless what the circumstances.

[Lanzfeld]

Get Some!!!!

[Apocal]

My only issue with recon fire is that with rules of engagement would unlikely allow you to machine gun every building in the hope that one has a hidden enemy in it. I know this has been brought up as gamey.

You'd be very hard-pressed to find an account of the takedown of Baghdad that didn't include description(s) of some mounted element racing down congested streets, blazing away at every window and door they saw or preemptively applying hot steel to suspect areas.

But more on-topic, all buildings are potential fighting positions until cleared by my infantry. Buildings go from potential to suspect if they are unoccupied and have LoS to one of my vics or tracks. Accordingly enough, I hose them down. Generally with just small arms and MGs, but if it looks like something too good to pass up, I let some HE go to work on it.

I try to create mobile sanctuaries for my mounted elements in cities, when I'm forced to send them through. In the city, instead of leaving them in fixed overwatch positions, I prefer to tuck them behind buildings and call them out for specific fire support needs, kind of like CAS/arty but without the delay.

[Peter Panzer]

You'd be very hard-pressed to find an account of the takedown of Baghdad that didn't include description(s) of some mounted element racing down congested streets, blazing away at every window and door they saw or preemptively applying hot steel to suspect areas.

Prior to contact with enemy units? When you have a moment, could you please point me in the direction of those accounts? I must admit, I have yet to come across an AAR citing US forces conducting actions in the way you describe.

The point trying to be made here is that the only tactic available to the player to have a chance at preventing an ambush in MOUT is to lay fire on every suspect structure in the hope of getting lucky and drawing a response. Recon-by-fire should be one option not the only option.

If folks want to roll into every virtual town and light up block after block as a SOP, that's great, play the game as you wish. Those who prefer a methodology aligned closer with more common practices shouldn't be shoehorned into that tactic because the spotting in MOUT is presently off base.

Seriously, how does someone look at the images I posted in the link below and conclude that MOUT spotting is good to go?

http://www.battlefront.com/community...t=85444&page=7

[MikeyD]

One school of thought is kneeling on the edge of a rooftop in the game isn't really kneeling on the edge of a rooftop. It's crouching behind the hung line of laundry, its hiding your weapon out of sight and acting like a civilian going about his business. One reason why there's a 'civilian density' option in the editor is so troops will have increased difficulty distinguishing friend from foe until the foe does something to get your attention. That's why you can 'walk' a spy right up to a blue unit but if you try 'running' him up he'll get shot down.

One thing you've got to remember about CM scenarios - they aren't 'puzzles' to reason your way through like a scripted shooter game. Sometime you're presented with an impossible situation. If your goal is protecting your men I can think of a couple scenarios where I wouldn't do anything but get them behind a tall wall and keep them there... And maybe frag my CO later that evening in retribution for putting me in that situation.

[stikkypixie]

One school of thought is kneeling on the edge of a rooftop in the game isn't really kneeling on the edge of a rooftop. It's crouching behind the hung line of laundry, its hiding your weapon out of sight and acting like a civilian going about his business. One reason why there's a 'civilian density' option in the editor is so troops will have increased difficulty distinguishing friend from foe until the foe does something to get your attention. That's why you can 'walk' a spy right up to a blue unit but if you try 'running' him up he'll get shot down.

One thing you've got to remember about CM scenarios - they aren't 'puzzles' to reason your way through like a scripted shooter game. Sometime you're presented with an impossible situation. If your goal is protecting your men I can think of a couple scenarios where I wouldn't do anything but get them behind a tall wall and keep them there... And maybe frag my CO later that evening in retribution for putting me in that situation.

The problem is that is also happens with fully uniformed Syrian squads who aren't affected by civilian density. I'm thinking it's more of a bug.

[dan/california]

The other thing about civilian density is that many scenario designers don't think about very well, at least all of the time. If the radio and TV ads blaring, continuously and for days that a city is in the path of the the main U.S. advance, and that ROE is to obliterate anything bigger than a cat that shows up on thermals, there will very shortly be almost no civilians within range of a U.S. armored column. When the war is about more than propaganda concerns priorities have a way of changing.

Even without that level of nastiness there are lots of more or less dirty tricks like the Israeli robo-calls saying the your house is on the target list for 9 P.M. tonight, don't be there.

Most civilians just don't hang out in the open in the middle of a shooting war, stability ops are a different question, but CMSF is more about the shooting war part of the mess.

[Vinnart]

Kill em all let God sort em out! All good advice above. If you follow good doctrine you shouldn’t have many casualties if you’re USA. Personally I have found the game a bit easy so far playing on veteran, USA, turn base. Haven’t lost to the AI yet.

As the guys said above put out good overwatch positions with suppressive fire. USA’s main strngth is fire superiority, so use it. You can get more specific if you zoom in; fire at 1st floor, fire at 2nd floor ect.. NO matter what you do expect some casualties going in. Ambushes are inevitable and can’t be avoided all the time, since it is the main Syrian tactic. Here are a few tips to minimize casualties that have worked for me.

- If you are USA army the first thing I do is acquire the javelins, then separate the anti-tank team to stay back on overwatch. Don’t bring javelin guys in on assaulting buildings as they are bound to get killed. Before you assault, if no armor is going to be a threat, Use the javelins as artillery against suspected buildings. Before you go after the final objective drop all remaining artillery on it.

- Don’t send strikers with Mark 19’s in on the initial assault, better to lose a machine gun stryker. The 40mm is better as an overwatch vehicle.

- Use smoke screens to cover the infantry assaulting.

- Avoid likely areas for IED attacks such as intersections and obvious entranceways.

- When you take a building take the time to clear it ALL the way. There could be an enemy hiding on another floor.

- You have plenty of time to complete the missions. Don’t feel you need to rush. Make sure your overwatch is fully set up before you go in.

- Use XO’s, Company commanders and the like as medics to treat the criticals left behind.

- When calling in arty always try to do it from a FSV with a forward observer when ever possible. This way is the quickest, and most accurate way to get rounds on target.

[rogue187]

Hey guys I have a question that is off toipc but still valid, do you guys break up your squads? I am generally reluctant to break up the teams in order to put the maximum amount of fire on anything that I want. Also, do you take your CO/XO/HQ's into the fight? Generally AFV HQs get pressed into the fight, but for the infintry, I tend to keep them back but not oo far away. I am afraid of disrupting Command and Control.

"I must ask that you cease the practice of shooting my officers!" -loose quote from The Patriot

[MikeyD]

Actually, this isn't so off-topic. Sending an unbroken Marine squad into MOUT operations is almost guaranteed to succeed because of its MASSIVE firepower. There are disadvantages to keeping the squads in one piece, most notably the smaller area footprint they take up, but you can't argue with overwhelming firepower. Oddly, fighting with Army units I tend to do the opposite - Army squad is not the same 600 lb gorilla in the room as Marines. I tend to break those units up and try to do 'clever things' with them instead of going for brute force.

About CO/HQ. At least on the Blue side you can get quite a distance away from your officers before losing C&C. On the Red side you lose control if they're outside of shouting distance

[Wengart]

If you are playing blue then you don't need to worry about C2, and if you keep your HQ in a stryker you will rarely be out of C2 range.

[rogue187]

Yeah, on the Army side I almost always kept the HQ in the Stryker, but I was not sure how realistic this is. Mainly in the leading from the front vs leading from the rear mentality. Since I am not (and never was) in the Army, I am not sure if a LT would stay in the armored vechicle while his guys are facing danger.

[Ricochet67]

During MOUT operations, I tend to shepherd the platoon MGs with the dismounted HQ. It also doubles as a medic.

Vehicles are kept well back from unsecured buildings and, where possible, parked behind partial cover - low walls or building corners. In the event I'm feeling bold enough to approach an uncleared building with a vehicle, I'll travel quick or fast and suppress the floors (if more than one) on the way in.

Relying on quick moves to enter buildings resulted in a few too many deaths, so I tried the assault order and it works quite well. I keep the distance short - across a road or from outside the target building - and the squad splits into overwatch and assault elements.

Pay attention to the question marks. Suppress these contacts when you're moving infantry within proximity.

[Apocal]

Prior to contact with enemy units? When you have a moment, could you please point me in the direction of those accounts? I must admit, I have yet to come across an AAR citing US forces conducting actions in the way you describe.

Prior to contact but after recieving intelligence or reports that raised suspicions.

Generation Kill by Evan Wright

Takedown by Jim Lacey

Ambush Alley by Tim Pritchard

Not A Good Day to Die by Sean Naylor

No True Glory and The March Up by Bing West

Thunder Run by David Zucchino

Fallujah, With Honor by ???

We Were One by ???

All of them include descriptions of recon by fire although it's not usually named as such and in a few cases you have to read between the lines. We Were One (covering Fallujah, which is quite similar to most streetfights in CMSF) includes an especially brutal depiction of the practice, with the company in question (having taken around 25% casualties after four days) simply launching thermobaric rockets into any building they remotely suspected of being occupied and collapsing it.

Then there is this article describing the H&I mortar fires used by 4ID after major combat operations had ended in Iraq: http://1-22infantry.org/current/mortarsiraq.htm

The point trying to be made here is that the only tactic available to the player to have a chance at preventing an ambush in MOUT is to lay fire on every suspect structure in the hope of getting lucky and drawing a response. Recon-by-fire should be one option not the only option.

There really aren't a whole lot of other options, to be honest. IRL insurgents initiate contact around 80% of the time in built-up areas. And in-game shock effect via stealth or suprise isn't really achieveable (you'll never come across an enemy squad sleeping) so you're forced to go big, mean and nasty.

If folks want to roll into every virtual town and light up block after block as a SOP, that's great, play the game as you wish. Those who prefer a methodology aligned closer with more common practices shouldn't be shoehorned into that tactic because the spotting in MOUT is presently off base.

MOUT spotting could stand to be tweaked, but prior to this, holding onto buildings in the face of firepower was harder than it should be because of X-ray vision possessed by some units.

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Actually, this isn't so off-topic. Sending an unbroken Marine squad into MOUT operations is almost guaranteed to succeed because of its MASSIVE firepower. There are disadvantages to keeping the squads in one piece, most notably the smaller area footprint they take up, but you can't argue with overwhelming firepower. Oddly, fighting with Army units I tend to do the opposite - Army squad is not the same 600 lb gorilla in the room as Marines. I tend to break those units up and try to do 'clever things' with them instead of going for brute force.

Really? I do the opposite--I find that since my Marine squads are so big, I seldom don't split them, whereas with Army squads, I tend to keep them more concentrated. When splitting Marine squads, it actually in many cases maximizes firepower, because if you have one team on each floor of a three-story building, you actually usually get more guns on target than if you have all thirteen dudes on one floor.