tactics - infantry in woods

[noxnoctum]

hehe.. funny you should say that sly.

stay tuned to the maps and scenario forum in the next few days.

"The Hurtin' Forest" (groan) working title

Trenches, bunkers, pillboxes... all in a nice thick wrapper of forest.

Very clever

[Sgt Schultz]

But if arty was in with smoke. laying a smoke screen to move closer and then have sure contact when it lifts seems fine for getting rid of enemy forward units. But if I am going to bother with a heavy smoke screen, would not just swarming the area with troops during the smoke screen to outnumber and get into close combat distance be better at getting things in my favor and dislodge and kill more enemy.

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Therin lies the difference in "pop smoke" use and indirect fire smoke.

Recon/screening troops/vehicles can pop a small screen to allow freedom of maneuver for just their small force. Not always used for attack. Sometimes a displacement to the side or falling back is in order.

Main gun direct fire smoke, as has been stated, works for penetrating into wooded areas and blinding fortifications.

Indirect smoke works for the purpose you stated... getting the main force into position to blow a hole in the main line of reisistance. It is also good for an undisturbed approach march to your jump off points.

If you have the assets, no need to take any casualties until you are good and ready to return the favor.

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All this works in the woods as well as anywhere else. The main difference/challenge is keeping HQs/FOs alive in the close-range wooded environment.

[DaveDash]

Even with veteran modern troops in CM:SF clearing out woods with infantry results in heavy casualties. WW2 era troops is very tricky.

Definitely send in scout teams and try to locate and avoid his concentration of troops. Mortars really are your friend here.

[slysniper]

Even with veteran modern troops in CM:SF clearing out woods with infantry results in heavy casualties. WW2 era troops is very tricky.

Definitely send in scout teams and try to locate and avoid his concentration of troops. Mortars really are your friend here.

Not sure if mortars are. They cannot be used as for sighting for themselves, cannot see that far. And if You are trying to use them as a indirect fire weapon, the distance the spotter can see is so limited, I would think there would be a good chance of spotting rounds landing on one own troops.

I like the fact that woods are much more challenging than the old version of the game. but Will need to decide what will be my best tactic if in the situation I presently have.

As a side note: I did find I have troops with smoke and some were in perfect place to drop them in the up wind position at the end of the enemy line. Will see how well that helps in my next thrust.

[slysniper]

As for using smoke in general, I have understood the concept and principles that some of you have pointed out, and agree with suggestions given for general tactics.

But I never felt the need for smoke in any of my play in any game when in woods other than maybe if I was in full retreat and wanted to make sure i had concealment for troops.

So finding myself needing additional concealment in that enviroment is a new thought process for me, plus if you noticed. I had been doing just fine with ordanance smoke until now. I really had no clue my infantry was packing smoke grenades also. So one more toy in the grab bag that will not be forgotten about anymore.

So Thanks

[DaveDash]

Not sure if mortars are. They cannot be used as for sighting for themselves, cannot see that far. And if You are trying to use them as a indirect fire weapon, the distance the spotter can see is so limited, I would think there would be a good chance of spotting rounds landing on one own troops.

I like the fact that woods are much more challenging than the old version of the game. but Will need to decide what will be my best tactic if in the situation I presently have.

As a side note: I did find I have troops with smoke and some were in perfect place to drop them in the up wind position at the end of the enemy line. Will see how well that helps in my next thrust.

Well you'd want your spotter looking down onto the woods ideally. You can usually find a gap somewhere in the trees. Either that or just paste the entire area at the start of the game during the deployment phase. I usually do that with "likely" enemy positions if I have the assets available.

Reverse slope woods or on top of a hill? Forget it. Just go around it.

[slysniper]

Well you'd want your spotter looking down onto the woods ideally. You can usually find a gap somewhere in the trees. Either that or just paste the entire area at the start of the game during the deployment phase. I usually do that with "likely" enemy positions if I have the assets available.

Reverse slope woods or on top of a hill? Forget it. Just go around it.

Well when they are objective points, really wanted to give it a go. Was it worth it, possible not. As for viewing into them, they are high points and have a reverse slope. Plus no real gaps, so the perfect woods to avoid. And in truth, like has been pointed out by many others, should be avoided if you can adcheive your battle plans any other way. But I like being cruel and watch my little men die to gain the sacred ground. At this point It is more of a testing ground than I am worried about having to take it, just want to see if I can.

[slysniper]

Final report. I have waged my war and fought the fight of clearing two large patches of woods, with infantry against infantry and within the process I think I might have tried every suggestion here. To what effect might be another question. But I will share my observations here anyway.

First and foremost, the grenade is supreme, the troops looping them will generally win or at least take as many of the enemy as they lose. So before making contact, make sure you are using units that have them in supply. Behind the grenade comes automatic weapons, since many fire fights become fights where one or two guys can only see one or two guys for the first portion of the exchange, that fire power surely shines in this type of environment as long as the grenades have not already have been tossed..

Who wins, normally the side that spots the other side first, because of short distances , when someone opens up, normally good things happen, if you have not killed the enemy, many times at least his face is in the dirt. But I was grateful many times to see men rise to the occasion, manage to return fire and even sometimes win. Even when they received fire against them first.

So what can you do as an attacker, since you are the one moving and likely will be spotted first. I found instead of trying to getting the odds in my favor as to the number of men in the fire fight, which normally lead to more targets for them grenades to kill, that trying to keep my men spread apart seems better. Plus allows me to probe more enemy line looking for weak points.

Getting the flank on the enemy helps , but is no game winner. What it does do is help s you spot first, plus if you do manage to get troops spotting and firing from both the front and flank, you will likely get the kill, The problem was, how many times the enemy still managed to kill whichever unit he was focused on before my other unit killed him.

Now , I need to clarify something here, many fire fight end when one side losses one or two men or they have been pinned. At which point that side decides to flee, which gives you a few moments to shoot them in the back before they hide from sight within the brush once more. So my most important tactic was having additional men behind my front line troops (just far enough back to stay out of grenade range), that would either move forward to take the ground I just saw the enemy infantry flee from or if my front line troops still had good morale, to take their spot as I pushed them forward in chase to try and get additional shots on the fleeing enemy.

Smoke, oh, that magical stuff. I used my infantry smoke, which I had forgot had even existed until some comments from others here. I did have arty with smoke that I could get into the woods if I did a big enough area fire circle, plus I pushed a tank in as far as it could go , them had it pop smoke from there.

So I managed to get smoke to cover the enemy and their view. Thus allowing me to move in very close to the enemy. But what I found was, Ok, it stops me from getting spotted while on the move, but as it clears, it still is up for grabs as to who will see who first. But at least it places you on even ground as to who might spot who first. Plus you can be so close, normally heads will roll, one way or the other.

So in closing, going into woods is no fun task, avoiding it is the best option, unless that is not possible. Don’t expect to kill more enemy than you will lose of your own men even if you have a much larger force, and expect to use vast amounts of time to clear a short distance, I found that out because unless I had smoke, most advancing is crawling on ones belly.

As to the cost in manpower, truthfully, how the game is designed at the moment, I will never know who truly lost the most personnel in there. Since bodies don’t stay and wounded can vanish. The only indicator as to how you are doing is by counting the little red crosses when you see them as units go down. So I did not take a tally of them, since that is not accurate. But in general it felt pretty even. One turn I might see a enemy MG jump on and kill 2 or 3 of my men in a team, to turn around and a few turns later seeing that unit jumped on by one of my men with a Thompson and watch multiple bodies of the crew lying dead on top of each other in the aftermath.

I am glad I did it and still question if I will get the objective points for one of the two woods. But the harder the task, the sweeter the feel as to when one achieves it. So it was worth it to me.

Also, maybe the newer version of the game does not get everything right, but this type of play is light years ahead of what we had before. Those that cannot appreciate that can continue to wish for a beer and pretzel approach, but the added complexity to the newer game also adds to having realistic challenges that reflect more to real life. Woods are now something to truly fear. Most war games have never had that right, this one does.