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JasonC on Combined Arms
POSTED at Battlefront BY JasonC 12/23/06:
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Combined arms is all about using the right tool for the job, and avoiding match ups that effectively let the other guy use the right tool for his job.
Bad combined arms tactics are still better than no combined arms. Bad combined arms consists of taking some of everything and throwing all of it at the enemy in a lump, hoping something "sticks". It generally gives the enemy plenty of match ups he likes, and a fair number of even exchanges, and a few he doesn't like.
An almost equally bad form of combined arms tactics is to throw parallel things at the enemy. Whenever he pulls out a tank, you pull out a tank. Whenever he sends a platoon of infantry into woods X, you send a platoon of infantry into woods X. This tends to generate a lot of even match ups that turn into bloody, brawling exchanges. I call it "mindless mashing of like on like". And that isn't a recommendation.
A slightly improve version of the previous tries to throw 2 of the same thing at each 1 of the enemy, parallel. This does slightly better than the previous until you run out of something. Then it is about as bad as any of the other dumb versions of combined arms.
Smart combined arms, in contrast, starts with looking for the lopsided match-ups in which a few special items in your bag of tricks can badly hurt specific pieces of the enemy force without suffering themselves, or without suffering anything of comparable value.
But it doesn't stop with looking for such match ups - it extends to deliberately bringing them about. By force selection, by traps and "head games" with the enemy, by maneuver and timing, by escalation ("trumping" whatever he used last), and by carefully safeguarding units not currently being used in a lopsided, favorably match up, to avoid giving the enemy one. (Rather than leaving everything open and so giving him his own "pick" of what to fight with what).
Then you analyze the enemy force to see which "legs" of his combined arms are weakest, or vulnerable to weapons you have that can get at him. You deliberately exchange off or otherwise neutralize a few key items with one set of weapons, and then as if by magic, your remaining weapons are free to go to town on the rest of his force. Because their specific "counters" are already gone.
Meanwhile you are also watching for the enemy's attempts to do the same to you, anticipating his threats, protecting the key things you need to protect, etc.
That is an overview of the idea of combined arms, and the distinction between bad, relatively mindless versions of it and the real thing.
To make it all work you have to know which match ups are favorable, in what circumstances. You need intel about the enemy, his force mix and his current positons and plans. You need to keep the enemy in the dark about your own if you can, or act in a careful manner that avoids giving him chances even if he does figure out what you are up to, or you need to surprise him with speed or audacity etc.
Well, the non technical side of that is simply commanding your units and trying things. The technical side of it is knowing the useful match ups. Some of which come from common sense and real world tactics, and some instead have to come from specifics of CM as a game, with its own quirks and costs. And there are a lot of those.
One easy way to learn a few is to beat the AI repeatedly using different sorts of weapons to do it. It gives you confidence and highlights the ability of each weapon - you learn what it can do in nearly ideal conditions. Nearly ideal because the AI is quite dumb about this stuff and will generally let you get away with using each asset in the perfect way, on its chosen prey.
Then you have to put it together trying things vs. humans, who are much tougher about it all.
What are some of the basic match ups to know?
Well, direct fire HE weapons on the map, 75mm caliber and above, are very effective against infantry in houses, and pretty effective against infantry in all kinds of cover.
Mortars and FOs are more effective against infantry in woods, or the lighter forms of vegetation cover (brush, wheat), particularly if "above ground" (meaning without any foxholes or trenches).
MGs and other light caliber, high ROF weapons are particularly effective against infantry or teams caught in open ground. At longer range, they are also "stealthy" - they give only "sound contacts" even when firing, making it very hard to hurt them back.
Tanks are particularly vulnerable to hidden towed guns that refrain from opening fire until they have a perfect "sight picture" - especially full powered antitank guns that can penetrate the target from any angle. Initial side shots by high ROF weapons or multiple weapons are a second best version of this.
Some very cheap items can kill very expensive ones when the conditions are perfect. Examples are panzerschrecks, ampulets, tank hunters, hidden AT minefields, the cheaper guns. Often these are range limited or themselves vulnerable, but stealthy "ambush" weapons (which makes them cheap). But they can kill 150+ point full tanks.
A general countermeasure to cheap but short range threats to tanks is to keep them well back, advancing only reluctantly. But that generally lets the other guy's tanks survive to hit your own infantry.
Some tanks are thick enough in front armor that they can present themselves "head on" to enemy tanks without much to fear, while being able to kill them. They are said to overmatch the vehicles faced or to be "uber" (short for "ubertank"). Well, an ubertank facing a sequence of 1 on 1s against lesser tanks is a lopsided "clean kill" match up.
Many tanks on few when both can hurt each other is another lopsided match up. This can happen with a "pack" - a full platoon all moving together engaging one enemy - or it can happen as "teamwork" between "wingmen" - two or more widely separated tanks, with the one he isn't facing engaging first, then the other after he turns to face the first. This is called "many on few".
Infantry can get lopsided matchups against other infantry in several ways. One is a cover differential - e.g you are in trenches and he is in open ground. Another is a morale differential - e.g. you are both in full woods, but most of his men are pinned or worse because an artillery barrage just ended, while your own are all "OK". Another is a weapons differential - e.g. you have SMGs and he has rifles in woods - or he has SMGs and some rifles at 200m, while you have squads with 2 LMGs each. Another is an ammo differential - he already fought a logn firefight and his men are "low" or have less than 10 ammo each, while yours are full or over 30 each.
Small scale infantry tactics can sometimes create several "many on few"s in a row, by e.g. using move to contact orders to get just to the edge of visible inside woods, or short advances, and then having a whole platoon "hose" the foremost enemy unit until it breaks. His friends can't yet see all the shooters. Watch the ammo, though - you can't afford to fire away forever at already broken men.
Guns can be countered once fully spotted by hitting with with on-map mortars, with an HQ spotting for the mortar. Since the mortar is out of sight and the HQ isn't firing, the gun can't see anything to shoot back at.
FOs can similarly call down fire without anyone knowing where it is coming from, and so give a lopsided match up. But be a bit careful here. There is another way this can fail - if you throw all your shells at too small or thin or well protected a target, you "ammo kill" your own FO, without hurting many enemy.
The "ammo kill" idea is a more general one. Think about it this way - the winner can't run out of men but can run out of ammo, but the loser runs out of men. So the winner is spending his ammo (percent, portion) only as fast as he is killing enemies, or slower - while anyone who spends half his ammo to hurt 10% of the enemy force is losing. In the same way, absorbing enemy fire without being appreciably hurt is a lopsided win - "sucking his ammo dry".
Examples of cases like that are all his antitank weapons firing at a tank they can't penetrate, or his FOs firing at men so deep in trenches they aren't much hurt by it, or his infantry firing at long range into cover, where they can do no more than pin people for a few minutes and can't keep it up.
Perhaps the simplest lopsided combined arms matchup is having tanks left facing only infantry, all the enemy heavy antitank weapons already KOed. Your tanks can fire forever with impunity.
Well, some can. Some types will run out of ammo.
Also, if they have deep cover, infantry can avoid tank fire by "skulking" - which means making short movements that break LOS entirely (back behind a crest, out behind the building in its "shadow" instead of inside, far enough back from a treeline, etc).
Skulking enemies can be dealt with by FOs or by using the fact that they can't see ahead of them anymore to close with them with your own infantry.
So, people plan out where they hope to get such match ups. A defense might plan out a whole series of them to cover its front, or the portion of them it expects to hold.
So one area is wide enough open I think, "I can get a lopside match up there by just having 2 HMGs able to cover it at range - they will pin any infantry trying to cross it". (MGs vs infantry in open match up). Another has a nice body of woods for an approach - so put a TRP on it and plan a barrage (FOs vs infantry in woods without foxholes match up). Another stretch is simply mined. Then for another, there is a good body of cover but the enemy will have to leave it to continue - so defending infantry go just opposite (cover differential match up, woods foxholes vs. moving in the open). But they might fall back to their cover and firefight from it - so perhaps an infantry gun is sighted to hit that cover (direct HE vs. proper target). To get past these infantry stoppers, he may try leading with tanks - so some routes are AT mined or have an AT weapon sited for an ambush (cheap killers of expensive match up), while others have a planned crossfire from two hidden ATGs (hidden ATGs vs. armor match up). In reserve for the whole thing there may be a main body of infantry (ready to get many on fews in the defensive cover), and perhaps a thick fronted tank initially hidden behind a crest.
See the idea? You try to weave these potential clean kill situations into a web the enemy must fall into. He tries to pick apart specific traps by using a different less vulnerable "piece" (get through the AT ambushers with infantry, or across the MG-swept field with tanks, or lure the guns to fire on a cheap armored car and then destroy them with mortars, or guess where the defending infantry reserve is and drop heavy artillery on them).
What nobody is trying to do, is "fight fair".
I hope this helps.
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"Most sorts of diversion in men, children, and other animals, are in imitation of fighting." - Jonathan Swift
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