Armchair General presents Combat Mission Normandy Tactics Episode II

In this second video we will take you through an attack on an enemy fortified position step by step. We will cover: planning for the attack, movement to contact, use of engineers, use of supporting fires, combined arms, and how to maneuver.

[@charliedoom]

Some of the best tutorials on Combat Mission

[@philipped.r.6385]

@GamerDeno, remember that Pauling is a retired Lieutnant Colonel. He did that job in real life for many years : commanding troops. It's just normal for us to have a lot of difficulty doing what he does like it was easy and natural. Except if you are an officer in real life, playing a true Wargame is very hard. Perhaps it's only myself, but I was always a poor commander in Combat Mission : Barbarossa to Berlin. I find coordinating and positioning large forces in an offensive to be incredibly hard.

[@Firespectrum122]

Damn, this mission was hard. I Company followed the same way in this vid and were blasted apart by mortars and machine-guns. As soon as they arrived, I had K Company crossing the bridge only to watch them get blown to pieces by a well placed artillery barrage. The tanks soon got knocked out by AT guns and shells started landing on M Company's Machine Gun Platoon and I just gave up. I just haven't got the patience for this, man...

[@jaycree1925]

This is amazing. I was just mowed down trying this mission for the first time. Thank you!

[@atlanticpressurewashers]

If I have the time, I start with moving one unit until I determine where the enemy is. At that point you attempt to establish fire superiority. Once you have achieved fire superiority you can begin moving more units forward at once. The critieria is that you must have enough units stationary and firing to maintain fire superiority. Usually you move units forward in bounds: one group fires while the other moves, always maintaining enough fire to keep the enemy suppressed.

[@Ferocious_Imbecile]

That was awesome. Paul Fussel's Wartime reinforces the hard lesson of this tutorial though. In an American battalion from DDay to VE day they lost their entire compliment of men 4 times over. Only two men made it from DDay to VE day...

[@larrypetersen427]

This is like the Infantry Officer Basic Course & Infantry Officer Advanced Course combined and distilled to the essential.

[@easytargetYT]

Want to echo the others in saying bravo and well done. These are of huge value to those of us not quite so talented in the commander role. ;)

[@allmightyajax]

I must tried this friggin' scenario half a dozen times, always ending with my infantry turned into hamburger BBQ'd with my flaming tanks: ( I'll give it another whirl with the things I've learned here. Thanks for taking the time to school us amateurs.

[@atlanticpressurewashers]

In assault, the squad attacks a specific target or location. The computer AI controls the fire and movement of the two teams of the squad. One team fires at the point selected to assault, the other moves. They alternate until they reach the point selected for the assault. I just wanted to move my men forward and not fire at a specific point. When they pause, if they see an enemy unit, they will begin firing on their own. So, it is a little different than using the assault command.

[@USMCGeneralmikal]

What an excellent video. The angles you take on the battlefield are awesome. I accomplished a victory in this with an excess of 200 casaulties, perhaps I can avoid mass slaughter with these tips. :)

[@horsensscope]

Thanks so much for your professional narrative, sir. Much appreciated. I still play all the CM games but the CMBN takes the cake.

[@milky55way2012]

Nice video which highlights the maneuver/fire infantry tactic.....never move all your units at once since the enemy is in prepared positions etc. One tactic I don't see in CM Normandy videos is flanking enough.....especially when assaulting villages/ towns . Another one is not using Armor properly, like supporting each other instead of peicemeal, like the French did in 1940....

[@PyrrhosOfEpeiros]

In WW1 there were times when in 10 min there were 50'000 casualities. Also, check out Stalingrad - in a timespan of a few months about 2.5 million casualities.

[@Blutch29]

Great lesson ! I hope next time, I will take this bloody hill !!!

[@1TtidnaB]

damn, I've tried and failed at this mission four times now. Those enemy spotters simply wipes out atleast one unit every second turn. I'm considering spending most of my mortar ammo hammering those bunkers in the setup phase, and keep some ammo for the AT guns. The shermans will have to supress enemy inf without artillery support until the cannons arrive.

[@FlibbidyFleu]

Glad your on our side!

[@atlanticpressurewashers]

In the example they all had the same time. But that is not always the case. If they all have the same time, then use the one that has the best line of sight to the target area. The observer has to be able to see both the target and the spotting rounds before the battery will be able to make the appropriate adjustments and then fire for effect.

[@JoVeg1]

I really liked this, thanks. Would love to see something similar for Achtung Panzer: Operation Star as well.

[@Martindinh1]

Combat Mission isn't the only war sim strategy game on PC, there's also: -Theatre of War Series ( All combat is real time with pause, infantries are selected as individual, inferior to Combat Mission, but still good IMO). -Close Combat series (Real time, top down, 2D, smaller scale, easier to play but good and tactical IMO, kinda old). -Achtung Panzer Kharkov 1943 ( Real time, campaign is Total War-esque, IMO not good). I've played Normandy but not Italy, I think the main difference is terrain.

[@vbfg1973]

@IcyScythe It's the second mission from the Courage and Fortitude campaign included with the game. It's called School of Hard Knocks if I remember right.

[@ktall6749]

Excellent. Very helpful. Thank you!

[@dutchman55555]

Panzer Command Ostfront also qualifies...platoon level rather than squad/individual vehicle, but you can also drill down and issue orders to them if you want. Interface is nicer, graphics are inferior, but still a very good game. Available at Matrix Games for two thirds the price of CMBN.

[@joseywales3848]

Great tactics video, good work!

[@thelifeofmr.nibblestheshih2353]

great video, very well done, thank you sir!

[@refugeeca]

You're really, really, really lucky. Most ridiculously hard mission from the entire combat mission series

[@TheShatteredSword]

Fantastic!

[@PyrrhosOfEpeiros]

Well, usually dead, wounded, captured and missing are all counted as casualties, as far as I know.

[@TheHIV123]

Yeah, you are correct.

[@Arnechk]

I gave up on this mission. :D

[@sirbowlie]

This was a mission that gave me real trouble. I guess my problem was I was unable to establish Fire superiority due to their mortars. When advancing on an objective like the forest in this or a building e.c.t. what kind of move : stationary ratio do you use? Do you mass charge short distances, advance only one or two units at a time, or about half and half?

[@spittlefish5208]

How do you get such a large UI for the buttons? Mine are always really tiny.

[@allmightyajax]

@IcyScythe What vbfg1973 said is correct. That scenario is EVIL: (

[@joeynuggetz]

Great video. Is combat mission te only game of its kind for pc? I'm not a tank sim fan so I'm not looking for sims that feature tanks predominantly. Also, I don't own the Normandy game but picked up the Italy one. Thinking of buying Normandy. They're all the same right.? Except for different units? Italy has moveable waypoints. Aside from that I'm not sure what the differences are. Anyone know? Graphics in this vid look better than Italy,

[@moeburn]

you said you look through your units to find which one can call for artillery support in the least amount of time, but in the video it seems that regardless of which unit you select, they all take 4 minutes. Does it really matter then which unit you use?

[@IcyScythe]

@allmightyajax which scenario is it? Thanks

[@REDFORActual]

Reliable facts state about 2 million, including wounded AND captured AND missing, but yeah it was pretty bad.

[@Conn30Mtenor]

this mission is a bitch. The German arty eventually takes out the bridge; it's necessary to locate and take out the German AT guns ASAP. That way you can put as many tanks over the river as possible before the bridge collapses.

[@luzten]

$35 now

[@GamerDeno]

You have to play the campaigns. It's in the campaigns. Pauling may also have also restarted a few times, used mods, played on low difficulty, been savescumming, or played a different patched version of the game from me because i found the mission virtually impossible.

[@rayg.2431]

Maybe he did, or *maybe*, unlike you or me, he actually knows what the hell he's doing (former US Army infantry officer, retired Lt. Colonel):: armchairgeneral.com/jeffrey-paulding.htm

[@andre5032]

U sound like ethan klein from h3h3

[@arvidkarlsen4248]

300+ casualties in 30 minutes of combat? If that was realistic, then the war would have been over by the end of the summer.

[@beersmurff]

Well you had tanks and 3x as many inf. Try this vs a human player in QB with 3400 vs 1900 point and you'd be toast.

[@rayg.2431]

Well, why do you think tanks were invented in World War I? Also, the general rule for an attacker to have a decent chance of success is to have at least a 2 to 1 advantage over a fortified defender, preferably 3 to 1. An attacker may be able to get by with less than 2 to 1 if his troops are much better in quality than the defender's, or if he achieves surprise, neither of which applies to this video. So saying "Try this vs a human player in QB with 3400 vs 1900 point and you'd be toast," is like saying, "Smash your head against a concrete wall and you're going to get all bloody and pass out." Unless you're Napoleon with an army of ninjas attacking at 5 a.m. while the defenders are sleeping off a New Year's Eve drunkfest, you'd do better by not attacking at all with those odds (1.79 to 1), unless you have no choice. For a further discussion, please see: www.dupuyinstitute.org/blog/2016/07/11/trevor-dupuy-and-the-3-1-rule/

[@beersmurff]

@@rayg.2431 Clearly you havent played much QB against humans then