Quote:
Originally Posted by Hawkeye Fierce
What affects the likelihood of casualties when squads fire on other squads? I'm just starting SPWW2 and I feel like I must be using my squads wrong, because I seem to be taking far more casualties than the enemy, even when the conditions under which we exchange fire seem far more favorable to me than them.
In particular, I started a long campaign as Germany, and in my first battle with Poland I put some infantry squads in a line of trees facing a patch of open ground. As Polish squads approached my position, my squads' fire seemed to have no effect, but the Poles seemed to cause a casualty every single time they returned fire. Given that my squads were stationary in woods, and the Poles were moving in open ground, it seemed odd. Any advice or suggestions?
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Polish sections are 19 men, ie twice the German section size. So they will hit harder,
when they connect - especially as range declines under 500m.
However, the disadvantage to large infantry lumps is that you suppress 19 men at the one time, and they disperse at higher numbers. 19 man lumps are ideal mortar and MMG fodder...
1) Don't take them on with just riflemen alone if you can help it. If you do, then you will need to reckon on 2 German sections per Polish one to even things up.
2) You are probably doing the newbie thing of selecting one element and repeatedly firing it, and at the one target.
- Move from element to element and fire each one the once, at a different enemy target element. Thus any return fire has to swap targets, and so does not climb the fire control ladder - if you keep firing the same element, the enemy will range in quickly.
- Newbies probably try to kill, but suppression works best. Try to get all the visible enemy elements suppressed or worse first. That overloads the enemy rally ability whereas simply concentrating on the one target means he only has the one to rally.
- Once they have all been set into pinned or retreat status, then you can try for a few kills. Dont try to eliminate elements as it is best to reduce as many to 50% as possible first. Damaged sections have less shots, especially for the LMG and other heavier weapons, and are more difficult to rally.
- As you keep them pinned, and get several elements reduced to 50% or so then they will start to break and run eventually.
- Dont do "rallyitis". Your german sections can carry 5 or so S points with maybe only a loss of a shot.
Reserve your rallies for any
critical elements, e.g. one that received a kill and went to 20 S points and retreat status, say. (Newbies seem to have to try to waste rally opportunities on troops that really don't need it.)
3) As a German, do not take the Polish on at 50M range ambush in woods, without first stacking 2 German sections (or at least add a panzerknacker or scout to the section). That will even the odds up a bit, and provide 2 slaps to the advancing Polish lump(s).
If the Poles get to 50M and fire back, 19 men blocks really do tear a chunk out of their enemy.
But the main rules for a fire-fight really are:
- When you spot a lump of enemy soft elements, call in your arty. Arty is the killer weapon on softies.
- Use your company MMG to suppress them (MMG have a blast sircle effect). Dont ever get your MMG teams within rifle range (500m).
- Always have your point men covered by the MMG teams. They are slow, so consider a light truck to shift them about.
- Use the blast effect of the MMG - target those portions of the advancing horde that you will cover several elements with the one blast circle. Play the MMG over the horde like a fire hose, as you want to suppress loads of elements rather than concentrating on murdering just the one team. Your ideal MMG target is the clump of 3-4 elements especially those in a stack.
- If you think enemy infantry will be coming at point X, then pre-plot your company mortars thereabouts. Don't wait for them to announce their arrival.
- Always have a section of 2/3 medium mortars assigned to each rifle coy, and only use these as
dedicated support for that particular company's fire fights and advances.
- If you have tanks, or even a tin can armoured car with 1 MG, then wheel them up and use like HMG if the enemy infantry has no anti-tank support. A section of 2 panzer 1 working with each rifle coy in Poland and France as an anti-grunt fire department is good practice, just hide if there are any baddie tanks about till the P3s deal with them.
- Germans have access to heavy infantry with several direct fire 50mm mortars. These are rather useful against enemy lumps of infantry, if stacked.
- Use the riflemen to sweep up any remaining stragglers from the support weapons firing. But otherwise, I usually leave unfired so they have plenty of opportunity fire shots for use in the enemy phase. I usually only use self-fired rifle shots once the enemy infantry have been reduced to a running mob, or at least a cowering mass of 50% damaged elements.
Don't fight "fair" in other words...
Andy
Newbiew question about Infantry firefights.
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