Troop Status at end of Mission?

[GerryCMBB]

Hello:

Have only played a few PBEM yet but most of my troops are either in broken, panic, rattled, etc. status. What are your experiences? I assume this is the sign of a poor player who is pushing troops too far and maybe not maintaining C2?

Thanks,

Gerry

[Boche]

probably jajaj

depends are you playing a capaign?

ussualy my the troops which have been fighting the longest and are most hit are rattled, if not ussualy cautious.

[GerryCMBB]

Hello:

No campaigns, just PBEM.

Am I right in thinking that I am pushing troops too hard? How do players avoid this, IOW would a rest of 5 minutes make a big difference? It cannot change their Broken status right, but they would be rested. I assume performance such as accuracy in shooting depends on whether tired or not and whether OK versus rattled, etc.

Gerry

[sburke]

Hello:

No campaigns, just PBEM.

Am I right in thinking that I am pushing troops too hard? How do players avoid this, IOW would a rest of 5 minutes make a big difference? It cannot change their Broken status right, but they would be rested. I assume performance such as accuracy in shooting depends on whether tired or not and whether OK versus rattled, etc.

Gerry

Honestly, there is no way to tell w/o more info. The state of your units at the end of a battle tells us nothing about the battle you faced. Luck, wrong force selection if in QB, tough objectives etc can all account for the condition of your units even if you were the best player. That being said, CMBN does reward patience and punishes hasty action. Recon, suppressive fire, smoke, breaching units all need to be used well. Before I give you a mistaken impression, no I haven't mastered it. Far from it, just learning bit by bit.

[GreenAsJade]

I think it is a very fair question to ask "what is the right level to push your troops for optimum performance in the duration of a battle", separately from the specific battle.

For example, one very skilled player once said to me "never end the battle with any ammo left" (CMx1). While this is a generalisation the point is clear, right? Wisely applied, it's good advice.

There might be a similar point about the troop status. Is a perfectly planned attack one where all the troops are rested at the end, or where they are all Tired, or where they are all Exhausted? There will be pros and cons for each.

Same with Status: maybe if your troops aren't all rattled at the end, you weren't pushing them hard enough. Or maybe if they are all rattled at the end, you know that you pushed too hard and at the end of the game you were suffering from bad troop performance due to rattled...

GaJ

[Paper Tiger]

It is entirely possible for the scenario designer to reward a player for having a pre-determined % his forces in good shape at the end of a scenario as well as to punish the player who has burned through all his ammo for that matter as well. If there are no entries in the condition or ammo parametrers, you don't have to worry other than the effects their condition has on their performance in the mission.

This lack of concern about either is one very good reason why I prefer designing/playing campaigns to stand-alones.

[womble]

Hello:

Have only played a few PBEM yet but most of my troops are either in broken, panic, rattled, etc. status. What are your experiences? I assume this is the sign of a poor player who is pushing troops too far and maybe not maintaining C2?

Thanks,

Gerry

Applying to the PBEM standalone battle situation only:

Did you win? Then you didn't overwork your troops

If you didn't, it's hard to tell whether your troops are in a state because of your handling of them or because they were roughly handled by your opponent's pTruppen.

Troops get Rattled really quickly if they take casualties and get suppressed. Often there's nothing whatsoever you can do about that. They're more resilient if they're in C2, but if you get caught in a bombardment, you'll just have to live with the results.

[BletchleyGeek]

Did you win? Then you didn't overwork your troops

Exactly what I was thinking

[slysniper]

Hello:

Have only played a few PBEM yet but most of my troops are either in broken, panic, rattled, etc. status. What are your experiences? I assume this is the sign of a poor player who is pushing troops too far and maybe not maintaining C2?

Thanks,

Gerry

What, this is normal. I have yet to figure out how not to get infantry into this state if its any kind of battle that is a challenge.

The trick is playing well enough that you find your troops in that state after you have made your objective. because once they are in that situation. they are not going to be worth much helping you push for any new ground. They run and break constintly.

One thing I have learned to do is, hold reserves and not commit infantry all at once. I find infantry is good at finding the enemy and flanking the enemy. but I need my other assets to do the killing. So I send a couple of platoons at first, they push the fight and when they get to the states you mention I push a fresh platoon into the battle that has good morale and leave these guys to start guarding my flank and less critical areas. So what I am trying to say is plan your attack and defence with plenty of reserves because in general. unless it is a one sided battle. most infantry can only handle a short term amount of combat and then thay are hard to control from that point on. Nothing like the CMX1 games.

Right now I am playing a game where I have companys in reserve. Once my first wave starts to slow down. I have a company ready to take my first objective. At that point, I figure they will have poor moral, thus I have another company that will move through that objective and hopefully be the force to take my next point past that.

I think it is a much more realistic result as to how brittle infantry truely is.

[GerryCMBB]

Hello:

"What, this is normal. I have yet to figure out how not to get infantry into this state if its any kind of battle that is a challenge."

This is what I wanted to know. And thanks for the reminder about reserves. Such a standard military idea that I have been neglecting. Making one more push for an objective with infantry in the states I mentioned usually ends with them doing their Brave Brave Sir Robin impersonation.

Gerry

[slysniper]

Hello:

"What, this is normal. I have yet to figure out how not to get infantry into this state if its any kind of battle that is a challenge."

This is what I wanted to know. And thanks for the reminder about reserves. Such a standard military idea that I have been neglecting. Making one more push for an objective with infantry in the states I mentioned usually ends with them doing their Brave Brave Sir Robin impersonation.

Gerry

I understand, In CMx1 I did not use reserve play much. It was easy to use infantry to gain fire power supremacy so why hold them back when I can have that. It was better than having units in reserve to replace units I am getting mangled because I cannot keep the enemy pinned.

So in that version of the game, for me reserve units were only good for being able to position and move to the needs of the battle. They were my forces to allow for adjustments without being in the line of fire.

In CMX2, I started out playing the same way and was finding out quickly something was not right with my tactics but could not place a finger on it.

But with some play, I started finding out, even if I outnumbered the enemy with pretty good odds, it was very hard to control the enemy points with infantry firepower. They just could not keep the enemy pinned without support. I started to notice that I could have 2 to 1 advantage but I would lose as many men in the fire fight as the enemy, or even better odds at times and still poor results.

Watching the men it was common to see that many men are not really in the fire fight at times, only part of them are shooting, so I would do things to try and help more men get a line of sight and into the fight, but as you spread them out and move them into firing positions, it normally leads to other issues with line of sight. Thus it is hard to get much infantry fire power on one point without bunching them up. And you sure do not want to do that in the game anymore, not with how arty works.

So normally I was finding whoever I was getting into a firefight was normally coming away from it with morale issues, and many of them issues do not leave the troops like they did in the old version of the game. Very seldom did I see good success at keeping infantry strong other than a ambush type fire fight. get a good jump on the enemy in a poor position and you will walk away having killed them and your men are still ready for more.

So my new game play is the infantry is much more, my eyes and ears of the battle. but once they find the enemy in force, they are there to apply preasure, but whatever else I have in real assets is what I need to figure out how to use to destroy them. the infantry goes in after to mop up and hold the ground. Even then they get low morale quickly and like you pointed out, once there, it is not good to keep pushing them. Unless you want to help the enemy win.

Brittle is a bigger trait for infantry now how I see it, if someone can tell me how that is not true and how they adcheive it, I would be glad to listen.

[Sublime]

even just a reserve platoon as a QRF or to hold until you see where the focal point of the battle makes a huge difference. You can test it easily. The way everyone gets shot up and worn down quickly - if you have a well managed platoon of regulars or vets who havent fired a shot yet enter the scene 3/4's of the way through they can be devastating.

Though at the same time - concentrating all availible firepower works well too - if you can present overwhelming fire then the firefight is shorter - less ammo is used, less emotional and physical wear and tear on your men, etc etc. However, in most balanced battles this takes luck, and careful positioning. The reserve option is usually the smarter, more cautious approach.

[slysniper]

even just a reserve platoon as a QRF or to hold until you see where the focal point of the battle makes a huge difference. You can test it easily. The way everyone gets shot up and worn down quickly - if you have a well managed platoon of regulars or vets who havent fired a shot yet enter the scene 3/4's of the way through they can be devastating.

Though at the same time - concentrating all availible firepower works well too - if you can present overwhelming fire then the firefight is shorter - less ammo is used, less emotional and physical wear and tear on your men, etc etc. However, in most balanced battles this takes luck, and careful positioning. The reserve option is usually the smarter, more cautious approach.

100% agree

The reason they are so devastating is by then you are normally fighting all them troops that were mentioned. Broken, rattled, panic and so on.

So, not like I want everyone out there to get better. But reserve units and learning how to use them in battle is something I think is one of the key elements for playing your infantry in the CMX2 engine.