Monster Combat Mission Normandy tutorial

*** Pre-battle ***
0:00 - briefing: analyse friendly and enemy forces. Review Objectives.
9:08 - preparing your attack: Analyse forces, anaylse terrain, develop plan, execute pre-battle moves/setup
10:20 - Icons, selecting units, army structure - teams/squads/platoons
13:45 - C2 network
16:35 - stats - leadership, experience, morale, tiredness
18:30 - jumping between units in a platoon
19:30 - tank platoons - radio contact
20:20 - anaylse terrain
20:30 - Camera controls 1 - 9
21:20 - develop plan
21:40 - reserves
24:05 - Combined arms tactics - tanks and infantry
25:25 - AT guns vs Tank tactics
*** Setup phase / first turns ***
28:40 - First turn orders
29:25 - The different movement commands - quick/fast/slow/etc
30:40 - Recce (reconnoiter)
31:25 - splitting teams
32:10 - Cover arc as "hold fire"
34:30 - Prepared artillery bombardments
37:40 - Calling Artillery
42:40 - 60mm vs 81mm vs 105mm
43:50 - placing waypoints/artillery missions near hedgelines/walls
47:00 - The different types of hedges
48:10 - artillery bug to be aware of
48:50 - rejoining teams
50:00 - All paths
51:00 - giving further commands at waypoints
51:50 - peeking through bocage
54:40 - relative spotting
57:30 - initial contact and minor mortar tactic discussion
*** Assault ***
1:00:35 - Planning an assault on a building
1:02:30 - tank buttoned vs unbuttoned
1:03:30 - Overwatch and building assault theory
1:05:10 - Overwatch options
1:07:40 - Assault timings
1:08:20 - Target light in an assault / friendly fire
1:10:25 - Giving commands for an Assault
1:11:30 - binoculars matter
1:12:25 - regrouping on waypoints
1:12:40 - line of sight from a waypoint
1:13:40 - Forcing the use of grenades (for building assault)
1:13:55 - The Pause command on a waypoint
1:14:40 - MG area suppression
1:18:05 - Reinforcements
1:18:30 - The tacAI cancelling orders
*** fighting through Bocage ***
1:20:20 (also 1:17:30) - Bailing out of a tank
1:22:30 - Tank turning speeds
1:23:50 - buddy aid
1:27:30 - the sounds of gunfire
1:28:20 - The pros and cons of a house
1:29:40 - targeting a unit
1:30:30 - blasting through bocage without engineers
1:31:30 - Ammo cookoff
1:32:40 - Direct fire mortars
1:32:40 - Cowering to break line of sight
1:34:30 - Enemy Artillery spotting rounds
1:35:25 - Scoot and shoot or firing limited smoke rounds
1:36:00 - Wind effects
1:39:00 - buddy aid
1:42:20 - buddy aid in action "medic"
1:43:50 - permanent morale and fitness penalties
1:46:15 - infantry screen for tanks theory
1:47:45 - trading and collecting ammo
1:49:30 - low hedges. Hedges tanks can cross
1:50:20 - more buddy aid
1:51:10 - the use of the hide command to break line of sight
1:53:10 - tank statistics - ammo/damage
1:53:30 - losing tracks (going slower reduces chances of throwing tracks)
1:54:10 - using enemy equipment. surrendering
1:55:15 - American doctrine for bocage assault
1:58:05 - Bocage assault in action
2:00:40 - Forcing the use of grenades
*** mopping up ***
2:01:40 - German infantry squads with MG42s
2:01:00 - 2:08:00 lull
2:08:00 - More bocage assault. The assault movement command
2:08:00 - Area fire
2:11:00 - Buttoning up tank commanders
2:12:20 - Buttoned up tank vs Panzershrek
2:14:30 - bailing out of tank
2:17:45 - committing reserves
2:17:50 - tanks on roads and mine concerns
2:19:30 - another example of overwatch maneuvor. How to choose your assault squad and overwatch squad
2:21:00 - Errant spotting rounds. calling for arty, then spotter dying.
2:24:10 - judging your opponent by incoming fire and fire superiority
2:26:20 - Buttoned up tank vs Panzershrek #2. Example of why tanks should not lead attacks
2:29:30 - Tank TacAI taking evasion moves
2:30:45 - recrewing a tank (can't recrew a different tank)
2:31:40 - buddy aid tip
2:32:15 - careful placement of waypoints near obstacles (bocage)
2:33:30 - surrender and objectives
2:35:30 - recrewing a tank
2:40:00 - semi-deployed machine guns
2:37:00 - After Action report screen
-- I mentioned I wanted to show blasting a few times. Until I do a video on it, I wrote this document: docs.google.com/document/d/1y...

[@taurus8422]

Guy makes a detailed tutorial video for a game with a steep learning curve. He uploads almost 3 hours of work to KZbin. The video is seen by 43 700 people. 302 of them gives a like. 8 of them gives a dislike ... like WTF??? You did and outstanding job overthere, thank you!

[@CharlesvanDijk-ir6bl]

He doesn't mention the company commanders role and what made an American unit during WW 2 was signals. During the scouting stage the platoon commander sends on section out and stays in contact. Maintaining contact with the platoon is crucial committing all of the platoon more than likely alerts the enemy that's where the communication with the company company jumps in. BTW I put in a like for the reason I am not very good in making videos. But know a thing or 2 about tactical signals. Rarely anybody mention the 3 green dots and go nuts when a section starts to act silly. Calls the BAR team an assault team???? The sergeant leads an assault, The BAR team over-watch and supports by area fire the other team are the flankers. I play on Iron and make sure the units will spot each other and commit after the platoon commander is in visual contact with his sergeant. Kind regards. Bad leaders they still have a map, binoculars and a radio but need to stay close to the company commander.

[@MrWojakPL]

UP

[@Mechanized85]

would you knock it off@@CharlesvanDijk-ir6bl

[@surfimp]

Just found this game today and it's exactly what I've been looking for for ages. Your tutorial really helped me - I know it's a long time ago you made it, but please know that it's still very useful and very much appreciated.

[@AndrewTuline]

Great tutorial! When creating a target arc around a squad in order to prevent my guys from shooting at distant units, I press the shift key when selecting the target arc. This creates a 360 degree target arc circle around my unit. That way, I don't have to worry if a nearby enemy pops up outside of my arc.

[@KhalainBear]

Good video dude was really helpful, only gripe I have is the game audio drowned out your commentary quite often.

[@jimmyvee2001]

Yeah so honestly one of the most helpful tutorial videos I've ever seen. Cheers

[@DazzaBo]

Man, what a tutorial. Really in depth and informative. Splitting up the video into parts and linking to the different parts in the description was great. Really appreciate it!

[@shrimpfarmer]

Really enjoyed your tutorial. Yet to play the game myself but your video has made the learning curve a lot easier. Thanks.

[@mikeandrews4357]

This really helped me. I found that I was able to complete the mission anyway but never really understood the command structure and the benefits of keeping platoons together. Just watching you play through this and explain your thought process while moving your troops made the whole experience of the game much more involving. I'm going to replay this again and try some different things out.

[@peet2213]

Great stuff. 9 years down the road and this is still useful :) Thanks.

[@Pete_Harris]

Very useful, many thanks. I especially found the stringing orders together and use of the pause command very helpful.

[@horsensscope]

Thanks for the great advice. Your tactics were flawless barring better mortar fire on that pesky AT gun. Your use of buddy aid was perfect. Bravo!

[@CharlesvanDijk-ir6bl]

Headquarters something to get excited about. Binoculars and communication over an extended range. When you have a large map, you use the company to do a leadership recon. In this scenario he becomes the spotter and he will spot the AT-gun.

[@aceace39]

Thanks a lot, this was extremely helpful. It also serves as a good overview of basic infantry and combined arms tactics for sims like this. Nice job.

[@overlookfilm]

should be watched by all beginners. it's long but well worth it - answers loads of questions and gives you pretty much everything you need to play. well done mate. great job!

[@Thegamespusher]

It's the main draw for a lot of people. You can play real-time over TCP/IP, or "play by email" if you want WEGO, as I'm using in this video. The next major update (coming soon) allows pauseable TCP/IP play, which still isn't quite WEGO, but it's a good step. Lots of MP options too - scenarios are what I like - but there is also "quick battles" which give you points and "rarity" to spend on a force, which you then deploy against each other. MP is, of course, where all the good AARs come from.

[@Corpus19]

I'm really enjoying your tutorial. Not knowing much about ground/land combat, this really helps. I just purchased Shock Force. Although Normandy is different, it still helps very much.

[@plau011]

Great video and much thanks for putting it together! Lots of great tips and I found it pretty entertaining for being over 2 hours long.

[@erdemtursen105]

Excellent tutorial :) great job!

[@BrokeMyPencil]

Thank you for this tutorial, just picked up the game recently.

[@One_Call_System]

I played through my first session ever last night and I won, but I felt like I did everything ass backwards, stumbling through the controls etc. I wish I watched this video first haha. I didn't know the command structure was that useful. (calling the mortars in on a target I can't see for example.) I was playing and getting frustrated that my arty could only hit things in sight. Good to know that I can hit anything on the map now. Great tutorial, the best I've seen, love that you broke it up into chapters!

[@horsensscope]

Thanks for the great walk through. You know your stuff.

[@jimcastor8601]

Excellent video, tks very much sir.

[@ss11955]

Tremendous job-----------thank you from a guy who really appreciates what guys like you are doing gratis !!!!!!!!! Jim

[@Bill_Garthright]

Thanks! This was a big help to me, as a new player.

[@HolgerHendel]

Great tutorial, thank you!

[@Brazouck]

best CM let's play ever !!! thanks

[@cipher88101]

I would say you have the outline in the description...some notes on each of those and your video wouldve probably been much shorter. You still covered a lot of good info and I played the mission after watching your video (newly inspired) and won a total victory with only 7 casualties...so it did help. Thanks.

[@thebigJ1er]

Just want to say thanks. I'm trying the demo atm, but not being a wargamer I've been lost. That kind of defeats the purpose of a demo, hard to judge whether I'll like a game if I've no idea how to play. This video helps resolve that issue.

[@horsensscope]

Thought you had seen the shreck hiding there on your left flank. I tried to warn you. Anyway, he was working solo at least on the last shots and no doubt deserves honorable mention for stubborn resistance, posthumously, lol. Thanks for the vid. Helped me to know how to do 1st turn fire missions.

[@ciscornBIG]

Thanks for this. Needed a refresher :D

[@tbelcher01]

Brilliant tutorial video! It might seem long, but the amount of time you'd have to spend searching the forums to learn all this would be a *lot* longer...

[@stardog765]

GREAT help! Thank you so much!

[@Tupinamba77]

Excellent video! Made me buy the game. Cheers

[@TheSkodric]

Nice one mate. Really helpful vid.

[@Thegamespusher]

No probs. I'd love to get back into CM - especially with the new modules and all. So many games, so little time!

[@WackyJackyTracky]

Wow great tutorial! Thanks!

[@mikevargas809]

outstanding, thank you

[@1TTMR]

Great job, I'd love to see more AARs

[@CheckYourLeaderTV]

@11.40 I think the Assault team would be the team with the Bulk of the rifles yeah? The BAR would be the fire support team surely? Great video and great effort in putting this up.

[@Gunboatjingoist]

Great info, Thanks.

[@EkajArmstro]

Amazing video!

[@Thegamespusher]

Yes you're absolutely right. I thought carefully about the things I wanted to talk about, but didn't outline it - which did make it a bit unfocused. Future videos I definitely plan to be much shorter and more focused (although I was thinking about showing an in-game campaign mission to show how I put these lessons to work "in the real world." But I'll need to consider how to focus the presentation so it doesn't blow out like this one.

[@SimDeck]

Thanks for posting this. It has been a great help. I have been meaning to get into these types of games for a long time. I couldn't get my head around the pace of it all, if that makes sense? and how to approach it etc. Thanks again :)

[@thelifeofmr.nibblestheshih2353]

great. video thanks!

[@CharlesvanDijk-ir6bl]

I like the scenario of of Task Force Raff better. You get a scout with 2 Satchel Charges. Consider the following analyse, scouting, probing till you have found most of the enemy. Than build up rapidly fire superiority 6 : 1. for each enemy unit.

[@Thegamespusher]

I have had that complaint a little. Redoing this video would probably be too much work, but I'll consider it. I want to do more videos eventually so I'll make sure the voice over is better for those ones.

[@FenrirsWrath]

Thanks a lot for the video. It helped out immensely. I almost gave up on this game until I found your video. But any chance for a video of the first German campaign mission in Panzer Marsh? I am having great difficulties of spotting anything without casualties. I have been trying to use the slow and pause commands but still end up losing men once I actually spot a fox hole. If it's possible I would greatly appreciate it.

[@Thegamespusher]

Assuming the tank isn't destroyed (click on the vehicle to find out) and the crew hasn't left because of that... then you have to wait until the crew's morale returns (in this example it took a good 4 or 5 turns) to a point where you can give them an order... then all you have to do is give a movement order. The icon will change when you pass it over a valid tank.

[@Marth667]

Awesome vid mate helped me a ton for splitting squads and things in general since the demo doesnt really have a tutorial at all. Just a question though, what do you prefer? Turn based or real time games? I find turn based are a bit hard, especially for contact of AT guns your tanks keep moving up

[@Thegamespusher]

Marth667 I go for WEGO (turn based) all the way. I like that things are "out of control." It's like I give orders, and hope they are fulfilled. I find real-time is too granular... WEGO isn't perfect, but I find it a little more realistic. It IS frustrating, though, when the TacAI doesn't do what you want. You'd think as soon as a tank becomes aware of a AT gun, it'd quickly retreat but on the other hand... War is confusing - perhaps they are not in the right state of mind? As an "all seeing eye" you can get the crew to react to an AT gun immediately, but you'll probably find that often the gun is actually spotted by another unit - to communicate that to the tank it may need to be radio'd up the command chain, and back down again. That takes time, so realistically they may not be aware of the gun yet. Even if shells are bouncing off the armour - the crew won't necessarily know what caliber they're being hit with. If it's low caliber, I'd prefer they keep the front armour facing, and try and take out the gun... if there's a chance they'll be penetrated, though, I'd prefer they bug out. But then, I'm not one of the guys in the tank.... they won't always do what I WANT them to do.

[@Thegamespusher]

Marth667 As to a solution to AT guns - don't make the mistake I made in this video - use infantry to sweep ahead for your tanks. AT Guns have a habit of shooting at infantry (until later versions of CMx2 at least with armour arcs) so, so long as your tanks are properly supported you can improve your chances of spotting the AT before your tanks wander into it.

[@Marth667]

The Games Pusher Yeah I used that alot in this mission, I found that the smoke rounds on the tanks are very useful for blinding enemy positions, and its quite accurate rather then have your mortar team get shot to shit if they try todo the same

[@Thegamespusher]

@FenrirsWrath You know what - I just did that mission myself the other night for the first time and also went terribly. I'm not really sure you're supposed to go very well - it's night, the amis are in foxholes behind bocage. I moved my infantry up to the bocage with cover arcs on so they wouldn't give themselves away. I even crawled the last few metres - and we were still spotted first and I lost most of my infantry. I ended up giving up on it and exiting - the intel was still useful next map.

[@Oddball_E8]

They only do that if the scenario designer only provided one AI plan. Most scenarios do have more than one plan. Try the first mission of the Kampfgruppe Engel campaign a few times over and you'll notice that whilst the AI sets up in the same areas (since they are the setup areas) they will switch around where they put the units.

[@Thegamespusher]

@Arnechk Ok, added to the bottom of the description

[@cipher88101]

Really good job on the video. Just a bit of positive feedback if I may? Perhaps you should make yourself an outline before you start a video so you don't try to cover everything at one time and try to focus on the action your explaining rather than, say - looking at hedges while the plan you meticulously describe is taking place. Your presentation was a bit slow so I watched most of your video with my finger on the right arrow key, but I really liked it. Please do more. (Like button)

[@Thegamespusher]

@Arnechk Sure. However, I don't have enough character in KZbin, and I wrote a fairly small document, but KZbin won't let me link to it. I guess I should do a video on it :/ I can PM anyone a link to my document if you want - or if anyone has a better idea on how I can get the info "out there"...

[@Thegamespusher]

YMMV, but I found that there was more scenarios and campaign missions that I could possibly play through anyway. I vaguely remember something about some scenarios have alternative set ups? I could be mixing my games up though, I suppose. Anyway, if you are likely to burn through all the scenarios, campaigns, and downloaded scenarios... you must have got your money's worth by then!

[@Thegamespusher]

Assuming it's not a bug - try clicking on the icon instead of the unit itself. It's a lot easier.

[@mikewood4242]

Where are the two scout cars and recce squad you start with?

[@joeynuggetz]

Ever think of remastering this video so that the audio is a little louder. I have to blast my speakers in order to hear you.

[@NoogDeNoog]

hi, long time combat mission 1 player (cmbb is my favorite), tried shock force and hated it. poor playability and trying to play by email was almost impossible. i am wondering if this game has better playability and did they improve the email system?

[@Thegamespusher]

Shock force was badly received, but Normandy ironed out basically all of the problems. It is much MUCH better (even shock force is quite good now.) Unless you have a problem with some design decisions made between CM1 and CMx2 (i.e. 1 to 1 modelling. Some people aren't a fan and that's not going to change.) The PBEM is unchanged though. MASSIVE e-mail files. On the upside, the community has come up with solutions to this. Look for "head to head helper." The MP community is humming along nicely.

[@AdmiralXiphos]

how do you deploy smoke

[@miksulder]

Tactical strategy games are best genre

[@Arnechk]

@marnoldster Thanks, thats how i do it too yeah, qouck to to point, blast to the adjecent, when they blast, delete order so they stay in cover. (Given that you play RT like me.) Also, subbed. :P

[@MrDavide914]

Unfortunately I'm not an english native speaker and can' t follow without automatic captions: could you enable them please?

[@theplanetofgames]

is this 1st mission stage? where is the 2nd mission?

[@Kaiserlyd]

How i create squads???? I only have squads of three soldiers...

[@Thegamespusher]

I haven't played in a quite a while now, but you can't is the basic rule. What you're given is dependent on what the country you're playing as had for their squads historically. For example, in this video as a fresh US rifle company the squads tend to be made up of 12 men broken into 3 teams. For a different company or a different country, that could be very different ... for example, a mortar or machine gun team would only be 3-6 men typically (again, depends on the country.) You can split squads up, but you can only reform them back together. You have to remember these are guys that have trained together, under a specific chain of command. It doesn't make sense to mix that all up just as a battle is starting. Now, things can happen - losses can leave a squad too depleted to function, for example... in those cases, between battles command would likely merge and rearrange things into a working structure. But then again.. maybe not. It all depends. This is all handled by the scenario designer between battles. So if you only have squads of 3 soldiers, that's what you're going to have to work with. It's likely for one of the above reasons (most likely I'd be guessing it's because they're a specialists squad - like MG, AT, or something like that.)

[@Bambabah]

Hmm I learned allot of this video maybe I won't ragequit from campaigns anymore? lol

[@grider05]

Shame. I really can't hear you over the game once it starts (I have a bit of a hearing problem). If you're using win7 you can turn down the game volume via windows mixer. Hope to see more videos in the future that I can hear as this was very helpful.

[@Arnechk]

@marnoldster Just pm me the link or post the URL in the description?

[@TheAlaskanbiker]

yea lets do battle got time

[@terrak1sc]

hey thanks a lot for the video, would be great to have a spanish translation, was hard for me to follow =). please excuse my poor english and salute from españa.

[@joeynuggetz]

Def a bug. OnceI restarted it was ok. It was the normandy demo. Full game works ok.

[@joeynuggetz]

Jesus, I downloaded the demo and cant figure out how to move any of the units. Click on them does nothing. Nothing highlights. Watched this video for an hour and your're able to select units no problem.

[@DenwarTheoriginal]

@59:51 Mortar team leaves its mortar behind :lol:

[@thebigJ1er]

Oh, but bocage is pronounced boh-KAHZH /nitpick

[@1066cwiseman]

You are also incorrect to state that German machine guns "rake across" - its called crossfire.

[@cipher88101]

You lose ammo moving your mortar team fyi

[@1066cwiseman]

Bocage is pronounced Bocaaage not Bockage...