Do you always seem to be on the receiving end of a firefight encounter in the woods?

Here are a few tips that I have for those of you who always seem to have their men never perform as well as they should in wood hex close combat:

1) When moving to engage enemy troops in the woods, those troops moving will always be targeted first.  Thus they suffer heavy casualties.  The reason usually is the type of move command used.  You cannot use any command except for "move to contact" when you are unsure of where and when you will encounter enemy troops in woods hexes.  The reason you suffer losses is due to your troops continuing to move forward, even when they have already made LOS contact and thus can trade fire effects with enemy troops.  If the enemy is stationary, and you are moving... your troops will pay.

2) Move in hunter formation: that is you need to condense your platoon so that you have 3-4 squads walking almost shoulder to shoulder with your HQ or leader 2 steps behind.  This way, any enemy troops that you encounter will attempt to pin the nearest unit, and thus the other units will be able to fire back and hopefully pin and route the enemy (hopefully you outnumber or have better firepower if even odds).

3) Height advantage.  Troops with forest hex height advantage can see further and throw grenades further than troops in lower terrain hexes.  I'm not sure, but I think there are also height advantage TEM's involved as well.  

4) Flamethrowers must be behind hunter formation with leader.  When move to contact is utilized in a hunter formation with a platoon consisting of a FT unit, the units in front will stop and take the hit first, while the leader and FT move to contact behind.  If FT is in main line, it will not survive, as it is the first to be targeted.

5) Engineers should be utilized as FT units.  They most likely will not throw satchel charges when first meeting enemy.  Make sure they survive the first contact by placing them behind skirmish line and then use "area fire" to throw satchels during the following turn after you've split the squad.  That way the rest of the squad can direct fire while the assault squad throws satchels and all unit FP is not wasted on an indirect fire order.  


I appreciate any other suggestions, hints or tips, stories or words of wisdom on this matter.  

Leto

Alternatively, split your squads up and move as normal except your lead split squad unit is placed the same distance in front that you mention.  That way you can still cover a greater area to probe for gaps etc and only end up losing the split squad while still having enough cohesion to manouvre the rest of your troops.  Bunching in my opinion isnt good, even in heavy forests.

Bunched platoons are susceptible to artillery barrage effects and unless you are paying attention to unit space restrictions, may cause for some unwanted movement as units try to exit another units space if too close.  That's why you need to get them as close as you can, but still allow for mass FP effects.

Leto

I find bunching up is one of the cardinal sins you can commit with infantry because they will take collateral damage from small arms fire directed at neighbouring units. I'm not sure of the distance you need maintain to be safe but I think it's somewhere around the 30m mark.

If your units are bunched they may all get pinned by one unit firing on them. 20m is a good enough distance. Sometimes I even go as low as 15m, but this sometimes is to close depending on what angle the fire is coming in from.

Spreading units is all well and good if its many on few and you can maneuver the rest into LOS of the enemy unit.

It is no good, however, being spread out if a bunched opponent panics and breaks your squads one by one as they come into view.

If you have lots of squads advancing through a wood you really do need to have them close together in a line, even though you are quite correct that return fire will affect the nearby squads.  The idea is that your combined fire will overwhelm the enemy shooters one by one before you seriously suffer.

Advance to contact is the only way to go once you are in the vicinity of the enemy.  Figuring out where that might be is half the battle.  If you can halt your troops just before the enemy hove into view you will take a heavy toll of them.  Figure out where to do THAT, and you're a master.

What he said.  Couldn't have said it better.  In the woods, that density is pivotal to you getting the upper hand in an initial firefight... you only have one turn to make a good impression I'm afraid... because if you don't, your troops will be pinned and panicked and guess what... you've lost.

The bunched theory only works for woods though.  I wouldn't consider t in the open, because then you really do pay from ancilliary fire effects.

Leto

In open terrain, units take suppression from shots as far as 25m away from their own position.  But that far, it is usually a light "alerted" only.  That still matters if the unit is already suppressed, because it slows rally - enough to prevent it completely for already pinned men.  Again in open, that can lead to sideways sneaking for better cover, aka "cover panic" behavior.  Almost always bad, because they don't try to fire back.

In cover, the shots 25m away have little effect.  14m is sufficient interval in pines or woods, meaning you can usually put a couple of units on the same tile.  Under 10m, and you are both taking the fire, which suppresses you both, lets shots to pin one prevent all rally on the other, etc.

While move to contact is useful in woods fighting, it stops at the very edge of LOS.  Sometimes that is what you want but often it is not.  Long advances that get you shot 3-4 times while still moving are bad, and plain "move" is the worst.  Short advance orders will push through a shot or two.  This is frequently important to avoid all your units only having LOS to the foremost enemy, while his others beat up your front 2-3.

Differential LOS is the name of the game.  The front line is only the shield.  It takes fire and cannot maneuver.  But that does not mean they are lost, not if they have friends.  The second line is the sword - it strikes.  By small flanking moves, by short advances (think 15m, 20m at a time - short!), sometimes move to contact when the edge of LOS to the first unit is what you know you want.  

Set up a many on few.  Even 2 units with sufficient interval between them, coming into LOS of just one, are certain to get a "free" unsuppressed shooter.  That means the other guy will get suppressed.  When he ducks, your other unit will be freed of fire, and rally.  Then you have multiple up shooters against someone already heads down, and they won't ever get up again (unless they have help, obviously).

You also have to watch overkill and ammo expenditure.  Woods cover is quite good, good enough that a platoon can spend its ammo eating two enemy squads.  The least efficient shots are the "finishing" ones, where the enemy has 2-3 broken men and you are still pounding on them with a whole platoon.  That will run you out of ammo before he runs out of men.  

Instead, focus on up shooters.  Close with the cowerers, using short advances again.  Grenade range (automatic in woods or pines, but not scattered trees) spares the magazines, and close combat range finishes off broken renmants the cheapest in ammo terms.  One unit can handle anybody already ducking, while the rest maneuver to many-on-few the latest brave guy still up and firing.

Ammo also rewards "wave" tactics in woods fighting.  Meaning, keep a second platoon or the third in a company completely out of action as first, instead of packing the frontage.   If the first platoon(s) win, great, relieve them.  If they don't, send another, and the enemy ragged out from the first fire fight probably won't have the ammo to go the distance with the second wave.

There is no rush.  Woods fighting is so bloody and decisive there will be decision in about 5 minutes even if you take your time about it and use layered formations.

Hate to disagree again, but bunching in woods is the wrong way to go.  Unless you have a huge number of troops youre leaving yourself open to a lot of things.

The main thing is that the enemy can hide from you, if your bunched and he is good at hiding then you may walk right past him.  Hey presto, next turn you have been shot in the back and sides.

I have used this tactic on many a bunched platoon in my time, another tactic is a hidden flamethrower, if he can get a bunched platoon up close - then that platoon is all going to die.

My method of approaching the enemy in the woods is to split 1 squad only, no more, and to use the assault element of this squad as your platoon scout.  They will take the fire and most likely die, but your frontage will remain the same and your options will also remain the same.  Your remaining troops can then concentrate their fire on individual enemy units one by one and look for the vulnerable flanks.

The concept of bunch and fight is just wrong, find and fix is always the way to go.

Mind you, all my tactical thoughts are Scenario based and your way may work in the gamier world of the MEQB?  I will put this to the test later on I think.

Good stuff, JasonC...never thought about the ammo side of things...

Personally, if I've Russian SMG squads (or if you want overkill, Airbourne squads!) I bunch them...they'll kill everything in the short LOS of heavy woods, and while they tend to be "used up" by expending all their ammo before taking too many casualties (then they become scouts for the remaining platoons). And as Russians, that's not so much an issue as they've generally more infantry...

The other thing that I find works extremely well, is having a flamethrowing with Move To Contact with a delay of 20 seconds after the advancing inf. Works a treat.