assault

[Hemostat]

New to CM:SF. Enjoying it a bunch. Played original CM series a lot but fell away. Now looking forward to Normandy but bought CM:SF as intro & liking the game on its own. Color me re-converted.

Question: what is the difference between the Assault Command in the Move Commands & the Assault Team Command in Administrative Commands? A good example showing how to use each would be appreciated. I am not sure after reading the manual how the 2 commands differ. Thanks,

[Erik Springelkamp]

Assault movement command means the unit will move 2 or 3 teams of the unit one after the other, while the non-moving team(s) supply overwatch. It is especially useful for Syrian units that cannot split into teams.

There are 3 ways to split a (good) unit:

- split off an AT team (a 2 men team with the best AT weapon)

- split into teams: 2 or 3 more or less equivalent fire teams

- split an assault team: roughly half of the unit with the most powerful assault weapons.

- CMA and probably CM:BN has the possibility to split off a 2 men recon team.

Explicitly splitting your team means that you can order all parts exactly what you want them to do. There are a few small issues with C2 of the secondary teams (the ones without the section leader) with some nationalities, but the big advantage is that when one team gets suppressed, the other part doesn't suffer from the ill effects, unlike when using the Assault move.

[womble]

In the Assault command, the teams move by bounding overwatch: A Team goes forward while B (and C) team provide overwatch; If the waypoints are far enough apart B Team will then advance through the position of A Team and go further ahead while the other team(s) provide overwatch. The teams are split according to their Team structure, so often all the teams will have a balanced mix of longer and shorter-ranged weapons.

If you use the Assault Team command to split a squad, you get one team with short-range firepower, and another with all the SAWs. These you can maneuver as you like. It can be advantageous to have the fire support team 'shoot [the assault team] onto' their first movement bound, then bring up the fire support team to the point the assault team has cleared and then have the assault team take point again. Some people refer to this as Travelling Overwatch, but I've seen that term also used for situations where both elements are moving simultaneously too.

Assault as a move feature also assumes and predisposes the TacAI towards heavy consumables expenditure. They'll blow through grenades at a rate of knots if you plot an Assault order into a building (as I think they also will of you use Quick with and Area Target in the building...)

[Mastiff]

they split up and conduct fire team bounding over watch, fire and maneuver. Straight out of the training manual. US ARMY, US Marines.

[Magpie_Oz]

Assault as a move feature also assumes and predisposes the TacAI towards heavy consumables expenditure. They'll blow through grenades at a rate of knots if you plot an Assault order into a building (as I think they also will of you use Quick with and Area Target in the building...)

I have also found that if I am not careful one team goes haring off into the building, out of range of the support element and gets cleaned up in short order. I have had better success having the whole squad race in using the "Fast" command.

[Hemostat]

Thanks all. Very helpful.

Wolfseven, I worked in La Mesa for 20 years. Lived in Bonita & Tierra Santa.