ARE TRP'S OP?

[Kandu]

No, trenches and foxholes do not work effectively to counter artillery in CM.

For a very specific reason: In CM, you need to manually order your guys to take cover (HIDE) in the foxholes, or they won't protect from artillery. Your troops can "cower", but this does not activate the foxhole arty protection.

The HIDE command can only be given once every minute. In real life, the captain doesn't need to walk down the front line shouting at his men to take cover from mortars. They would do that by themselves and react on a second to second basis.

Adding to this problem is that in CM, while troops are actively hiding in the foxhole, they can almost not fight at all. Whereas in real life, you'd be able to shoot back reasonably well while most of your body would be protected.

Also, for some reason the enemy are able to spot and shoot troops hiding in the bottom of foxholes from a distance of about 70 metres or so. In real life, you'd need to get closer and use hand grenades or flamethrowers.

Greetings. My experience with a scenario I recently created suggests otherwise. The scenario is the large 'Bloody Buron Overhaul'. German defences consist primarily of a line of foxholes to represent the dug in positions connected by crawl trenches (CMBN's trenches were too obvious). The German positions were saturated with a historical barrage in a series of stonks along lines between TRPs. You can see these in the scenario. After a truly huge barrage, German casualties were modest. Given that the Germans were under the control of the AI and had no orders to 'hide' given by the scenario creator, it suggested to me that foxholes were not too bad. The advancing Canadians, on the other hand, hiding and cowering in the wheat fields under a much smaller German counter-barrage, suffered as much or more than the dug-in Germans. ... an observation limited to a single S.P. game ...

 

[Nemesis]

Artillery is pretty messed up in CM. In fact, it is the biggest issue with the game.

Guiding in artillery strikes with an FO is MUCH harder than it should be. Your FOs often fail to see artillery shell impacts (to adjust fire from) that they should easily see. I once had my FO actually GET HIT by a spotting round (killing one man) and.....the FO could not adjust fire off of that. It is very common to see a spotting round land and then a second spotting round will land FARTHER AWAY from the target. Which is ridiculous. The FO can hear the impact even if he can't see it and make a general adjustment from there.

TRPs, on the other hand, provide TOO MUCH accuracy. In fact, you can reliably hit AFVs if you tie a 3 to 5 batteries together and put a point barrage on a vehicle.

So.....it is all a mess.

The best thing to do is just agree to TRP terms up front and stick to those terms. If there is not a rule regarding TRPs.....then do whatever you want to do. This applies to King Tigers, airpower, etc.. If you don't want it in the game, then make a rule up front. But if you don't exclude it by rule.....then don't whine like a baby if you then see it.

BTW, from serving in the 1990s US Army.....I can tell you that we plotted LOTS of TRPs. Every attack or defense had multiple TRPs. Lots of them. From doing lots of reading about WW2, I think that it was the same for them.

 

[Bulletpoint]

BTW, from serving in the 1990s US Army.....I can tell you that we plotted LOTS of TRPs. Every attack or defense had multiple TRPs. Lots of them. From doing lots of reading about WW2, I think that it was the same for them.

I think the experience of serving in the US army in the 90s must have been a very different experience from WW2.

 

[Bulletpoint]

Greetings. My experience with a scenario I recently created suggests otherwise. The scenario is the large 'Bloody Buron Overhaul'. German defences consist primarily of a line of foxholes to represent the dug in positions connected by crawl trenches (CMBN's trenches were too obvious). The German positions were saturated with a historical barrage in a series of stonks along lines between TRPs. You can see these in the scenario. After a truly huge barrage, German casualties were modest. Given that the Germans were under the control of the AI and had no orders to 'hide' given by the scenario creator, it suggested to me that foxholes were not too bad. The advancing Canadians, on the other hand, hiding and cowering in the wheat fields under a much smaller German counter-barrage, suffered as much or more than the dug-in Germans. ... an observation limited to a single S.P. game ...

I haven't tried your scenario, but I have tested foxholes and artillery pretty thoroughly in the editor.

Unless something changed in a recent patch, I still believe foxholes only provide cover when giving the hide command.

 

[Bulletpoint]

Much more battles were "assaults" or "attacks" then we play in the CM community. I think ME is the most played scenario, while in reality two forces "stumbling" into each other more or less unprepared would be rather rare (especially two perfectly balanced forces ).

I meant that in the kind of mission we call attacks TRPs might have been rare, because they would be attacks of opportunity, or exploring a breakthrough with no time to register new TRPs..

 

[Blady]

I meant that in the kind of mission we call attacks TRPs might have been rare, because they would be attacks of opportunity, or exploring a breakthrough with no time to register new TRPs..

True. All in all I wonder how often artillery was really used within the tactical timeframe of our CM battles anyways. The true force of artillery is not so much the front-line troops per se, it is the constant disruption or denying of controlled areas, logistics and just in general "normal life". Being under constant (threat of) bombardment should nor be underestimated. Never able to sleep normally, eat normally, even go the shithouse normally takes its toll after a few days on a defensive line.

 

[Blady]

True. All in all I wonder how often artillery was really used within the tactical timeframe of our CM battles anyways. The true force of artillery is not so much the front-line troops per se, it is the constant disruption or denying of controlled areas, logistics and just in general "normal life". Being under constant (threat of) bombardment should nor be underestimated. Never able to sleep normally, eat normally, even go the shithouse normally takes its toll after a few days on a defensive line.

That being said, I actually mostly use off-map mortars if I use anything off-map at all. Especially the battalion level mortars (80-120 mm) are a bit of a different story then artillery in the sense of artillery guns.

 

[Bulletpoint]

That being said, I actually mostly use off-map mortars if I use anything off-map at all. Especially the battalion level mortars (80-120 mm) are a bit of a different story then artillery in the sense of artillery guns.

Different story - how do you mean?

 

[Blady]

Different story - how do you mean?

They're battalion-level support. Meant for just that: supporting the battalion. They are used much more in a front-line role then regimental or even divisional level artillery. They are at a much better place in our tactical CM mini-scope.

 

[Nemesis]

I think the experience of serving in the US army in the 90s must have been a very different experience from WW2.

Perhaps not. We just gave map coordinates to the artillery. We had GPS units, but most of the time we were not allowed to use them. Maps were likely better in the 90s.

 

[ChuckDyke]

I think we completely miss the point here. I read up on some protocols useful if you play Russian. A platoon of Lieutenant Ivanovich moves to contact. However, before his mission, he was advised of the battery of Katusha's. His mission was to check the reference points of his map. Upon contacting German troops, he fires a flare that will trigger the Katusha battery. During the patrolling program, listening posts were established with field telephones. I don't feel it is against the spirit of the game that HQ's without radio can call artillery.