JasonC's writings
The renowned JasonC (Jason Cawley) over at Battlefront has given me permission to post his tactical essays over here. Many consider him to be the premier writer on the net on Combat Mission tactics. The following is his classic essay on firepower:
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"FIREPOWER THINKING"
Or - Infantry fighting in CM from an attritionist perspective
The apparently natural way most players think about infantry fighting in CM revolves around maneuver concepts and movement. You see where your men are on a map. You see the bodies of cover on that map. You think in terms of owned areas of cover, how far your men have reached. The problem appears to be, getting men from this body of cover to that one. Infantry in the open is thought of as a tactical crime, unless clear of all enemy observation in dead ground. Infantry's purpose appears to be staking an ownership claim to a piece of cover. The means of achieving that purpose appears to be, various movement orders timed properly. Since moving infantry seems highly vulnerable, other arms are enlisted to help it achieve these movements. The coordination of all arms appears directed at allowing easier movement for the infantry. Enemy positions are thought of as obstacles to movement; you take down specific positions to enable infantry to move from A to B. When an open area is covered by enemy fire, one thinks of movement there as "prohibited". Infantry's leading characteristics in this way of thinking are (1) its ability to move through any sort of terrain and (2) an apparent extreme brittleness under fire, unless in excellent cover.
There is a certain sense in all of that, but it is not how I use infantry in CM, not how I think about it. I think infantry can do a lot more than this, but to do it one has to rethink its strengths. With "firepower lenses" on, even the reason to move infantry looks different.
What do I mean by firepower lenses? I mean a certain bookkeepers attitude, that is paying less attention to the locations of units on the map and more attention to all the various numbers and categories the screen is throwing at you. Imagine each turn you got a spreadsheet that recorded unit states on both sides, but no map. There might be an entry for "nearest spotted enemy unit" with a number next to it in meters. And you then watch these spreadsheets update each turn, through the course of the battle. You see ammo counters tick down, morale states fluctuate, casualty counts accumulate here and there, ranges to known enemies decline, some "knocked out" entries spreading through the listed vehicles and guns. Imagine there were additional cumulative entries for each time the unit fired, that recorded the FP it applied (or ammo round expended, range) and the target cover (or type, aspect for a vehicle).
Now, think of all your in game decisions and orders as sloppy control knobs trying to dial in things that make those entries move in ways that work better. Every turn, you get some report - so and so many friendlies hit, so and so many enemy rounds expended, so and so many enemy hit, so and so many friendly rounds expended. If this sort of thing already sounds dull as dishwater, recall that you enjoy winning in CM. All this numerical stuff might tell you something about what is really going on.
From an attritionist's perspective, the goal in all CM fights is to destroy the enemy force. Objectives will take care of themselves, because dead soldiers don't hold flags. As a force loses units it falls apart, its various arms fail to protect each other or to deal with their specialized enemy. Those enemies then pick their opponents among the remaining force, going for the most lopsided match ups combined arms relationships allow. Routed men can't protect each other, the few remaining shooters attract all the attention and go down in turn. An edge in the overall firefight tends to snowball, to keep running and accelerating whichever way it first broke. The attritionist expects this fire dominance aspect of CM fights to determine the ultimate outcome - not which forces own which buildings or blocks of woods at the midgame - and analyses everything that happens on a CM battlefield with a view to getting it to break his way. Destroy the enemy, and flags will take care of themselves.
Well that's nice, but how do I destroy the enemy force? And isn't he trying to do the same thing to me? How is watching a lot of numbers flap around going to help me think about this any differently?
Start by noticing the most obvious things about them. Live enemies stays flat or goes down. Ammo stays flat or goes down. Men in good order as opposed to suppressed or routed can go either way - fire makes it go downward and rally makes it go back up. Essentially only fire makes enemies go down in loss terms or in morale terms. Aside from occasional losses to team members, ammo basically goes down when it is fired. Notice, some of it also becomes pointless when the unit that had it dies, or nearly so if the unit routs so thoroughly it is unlikely to recover, or have any time left after it does. And ammo declines in impact if the unit involved takes losses, in the case of squad infantry. Some ammo is left unexpended at the end of fights - often because portions of the winning side were not needed, among units routed earlier before expending theirs, occasionally a bit left for units engaged that saved some on shortened arcs etc.
The basic relation remains, firepower is put out by live men as long as they are alive, only up to the limit of their overall ammo. It tends to end near zero, as does the living and effective portion of the losing side - while the winning side is generally left with half or more of his force.
One can immediately see that the key to wrecking the other guy is keeping your own men alive long enough to deliver their ammo, and then just delivering that ammo, preferably under favorable conditions. Notice, this is far more important to eventual victory than the possession of terrain at the midgame. In fact, the possession of terrain is important only as a favorable or unfavorable condition for ammo delivery, in the sense that fire into cover is less effective than fire into the open, and in the sense that men with cover are more likely to live long enough to get their shots off.
The next thing to notice is that the winning side sees his ammo counters and the enemy strength decline at approximately the same rate - both from full to near zero - while the losing side only achieves about half this rate - his ammo goes to zero along with his strength, but only takes half the enemy with it. The ratio, enemy dealt with permanently vs. portion of ammo expended, emerges as the key attritionist ratio. If your figure on that score is twice as high as the enemy's, then you are winning. Regardless of positions on the map, regardless even of how much shooting you have done so far (provided you will live to and have time to do your own before the end). If the enemy shoots off half his ammo and doesn't hurt you, you have gained on him, probably decisively.
Now notice that the one variable we saw going both ways was morale state, which goes up due to rally. What determines rally? Who rallies, from what, and what effect does it have on the spreadsheet entries? Ammo does not rally. Tanks generally die or live - panic is a rare state for them and one they generally get into only because they are about to die anyway. Guns and mortar teams are effected by pin results and can recover from them. But a located gun is often subjected to continual fire by nasty weapons until it is destroyed, and mortars caught in the open are frequently knocked out, while when not so caught they are rarely fired on at all. They run out of ammo, not morale, typically.
What rallies the most is squad infantry and MG teams. They are continually subject to FP, infantry resolution fire. They don't suffer "knocked out" results. They lose men gradually, retaining much of their effectiveness if their morale recovers (a squad that keeps its LMG is mostly out a few rifles and still a squad. An MG out a few men loses ammo if it moves, but fires as well as ever). These types readily pin and occasionally panic or rout, but also regularly recover from fire effects. Compared to them, everything else has a "breakaway" quality, live or dead, with ammo or without.
How does rally work with squad infantry and MGs? The first thing to notice about it is, the shallower the morale "dip", the faster the recovery. A drop to altered typically disappears in seconds. Shaken and cautious results are typically gone the following minute unless something worse happens than happened last turn. Pin results can last several minutes or disappear in one, and units subject to them do not accomplish anything. But the unit continues under orders and recovers fully in a few minutes, if freed from enemy fire. Panic is an intermediate state, without lasting morale damage (the "rattled" light), but dangerous because the unit stops responding to orders, and occasionally does something stupid that gets it killed. It can take many minutes to recover from or pass quickly. Broken and routed results are much more serious, sometime lasting the entire fight, or requiring 5 minutes clear of all action to recover to a rattled "pinned", and several more minutes to be ready to move out. A unit that suffers these is typically out of the immediate action and can only be brought back 10 minutes later or so, if circumstances prevent any further harm from coming its way.
Now notice, these are per unit relationships, with absolute times. 10 units all at alerted will be entirely recovered in less than a minute. 1 unit routed will not be recovered for 10 minutes. Thus, morale hits that are spread over more units, and over more turns, have far less lasting effect than deep morale hits to a few units in succession. If I could direct my enemy's fire so that he puts all my men at "cautious" every other minute, but never gets any of them to "pinned", I could absorb all of his fire with no lasting morale effects to speak of. Spread pain is recovered from much faster than concentrated damage. This means - I want the enemy spreading his fire over my entire force. And I want to concentrate my own fire on some of his units until they are well and truly busted, and then shift to the next lot and bust them too. But notice, I do not want to waste my ammo trying to kill off already routed men, to the last man. The best target is somebody at "cautious" I can push lower still. The worst targets are ones at routed I don't need to hurt further, or up at OK and in good cover at range, than I can only play footsie with but not actually harm.
Next I need to consider the conditions under which firepower is applied. Am I shooting at the right targets for the type of weapon I have? Or am I blowing my precious ammo on ineffective targets, targets I can't seriously hurt, and thus handing my enemy a faster rate of ammo decline for me, than of units left decline for him? To use my ammo well, I need to focus on choices of targets that give me effect for rounds expended. And not on other considerations, like taking that hill or doing everything I can to take out that one tank.
Do I fire an off board FO at a tank, hoping for an immobilization from a near miss? No. Do I fire my ATRs at buttoned medium tanks at range? No. Do my MGs fire at enemy 450m away in scattered trees, because only they have the reach for it, and I must do something to suppress that heavy weapons grouping? No. Do I area fire at that sound contact hoping to suppress him? No. Do I fire a big smoke mission the instant someone shoots at me and I can't spot him, because to be shot at without being able to reply is intolerable? No. Does my infantry open fire at 400 yards? No.
MGs have the ammo to fire at infantry in the open at long range. But it is a waste of their ammo to fire at unpinned men in cover at long range. Squad infantry has the ammo to blast enemy infantry in cover at 100-150m, and to help against enemy in the open at 250m. But not farther. ATRs are needed for hurt light armor they can actually hurt. ATGs wait for flank shots. HE from tanks is dumped on enemy infantry. FOs target IDed platoon sized positions in woods. The principle is always, what can this shooter hurt the most with its shots, that the enemy has anywhere in his force? Don't throw everything you have at the one Tiger, watching it all bounce - that is how the Tiger will kill you. Throw it at everything around the Tiger until it is alone - that is how you can kill it. Always take the best shot for long term odds. Remember, winners destroy the whole enemy force, leaving nothing or next to nothing. There isn't an enemy unit you want to leave alive, so every good shot is worth taking. You are exposing a shooter and expending precious firepower, so be sure you kill something with it. If you don't think you will, hold your fire. Firing chances will come.
The next most important consideration is many on few engagement. Don't fight fair. You want to gang up on small elements of the enemy force, and pound the stuffing out of them in a few minutes only. Beyond hope of recovery. You can "pursue by fire" with one weak shooter - a high ammo MG at range e.g. - to prevent any rally. Then and only then do you need new targets. The fewer targets in LOS, the less the reply fire. A unit you pin the turn it opens up and kill 1-2 turns after that, dies taking all its ammo along with. That is a "twofer". A unit that has already hosed you until it is dry is a low priority - worth the knock out value and presumably vulnerable, but hardly urgent. You want to walk your lethal ranges over a few of the enemy at a time. If he has other units that can fire at you but under poor conditions, "drink" his ammo and call it a victory.
You think of your force as a firepower emitter, not as an occupier of ground. What can it see, and see from close enough to really hurt it, close enough for a full ID and to make the ammo expenditure worth it? A subformation should be thought of as having a "melting radius", an area around it in which it can eat enemies. Beyond its efficient lethality radius it has some harassment radius - it can fire at such distances, to pin somebody in the open e.g. But it can't afford to keep it up for long, because it won't be killing whole units faster than its own ammo counters are dropping. It is best to let a few high ammo ranged shooters handle that sort of thing - MGs, or vehicles with huge ammo loads, or some hard to spot light guns.
What is an attack in firepower thinking? It is a choice to expend sufficient ammo or endurance from the integrated friendly force, to wreck a chosen portion of the enemy force. I will destroy that platoon with 105mm FO fire. I will destroy that block using two minutes of HE from these two tanks. I will annihilate the defenders in that wood by using half the ammo and morale "wind" of B company in a close assault. One is managing a dwindling budget of own-forces-with-ammo remaining, allocated against live-enemies-remaining. A series of spending decisions on such matters are to be strung together, so as to first disarticulate the enemy force, wreck its coordination and firing conditions, and then to murder the disorganized remainder. An attack may be initiated by a movement meant to establish LOS between planned shooters and target, or to achieve the desired firing conditions (cover differential, range, many on few match up, etc). Or it may be a pure firing decision, with such LOS etc conditions already existing.
A movement is only made when it furthers such a decision, or removes the threat of one from the enemy's arsenal.
The decision is achieved by fire. To fire effectively you must live long enough to expend your ammo, and spend it well. Everything else bends to those.
I could elaborate on various implications this has in infantry fighting in particular, how infantry attacks, its great strength from rally power, enourmous close range firepower, the value of shortened arcs, integrated fire by platoons and half-companies, the company as the proper unit of infantry maneuver - but perhaps I should pause first. The above is plenty for a first view of this approach.
March 27, 2005, 08:00 PM: Written By: Jason C
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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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