urban fighting

[IronHat]

any good tips for urban fighting? In my British LC I've fought through North Africa against the Germans and the Italian and now I've landed in Sicily.

The problem I've faced is that it's hard to bring down firepower on isolated pockets of resistance.

In the African desert, my men can spot enemy from a respectable distance and then it's the matter of bringing down everything on them.

In the hills and towns of Sicily my men keep stumbling onto the enemy and inevitable lose one or two men from the ambush. Sometime the enemy would literally be in the middle of a cluster of house so I can't use my tank. It seems like it's either rush their position or fall back and call down artillery.

[Brian61]

Large caliber assault guns and self propelled artillery pieces are your friend in an urban environment. Liberal use of the 'Z' key (indirect fire by direct fire weapons) combined with adjacent hex splash damage of large caliber weapons can suppress units hiding in a cluster of buildings. Machine guns may also be a bit of help - the medium or heavy crew served ones, since they have splash damage with indirect fire.

In many cases though, unless they are sitting atop an objective hex, it may be better to bypass them.

[gila]

First of all,decide your objectives,how deep you will go and where to stop.
It's your decision after all
Urban fights are very ugly affairs,i usually avoid them or make it limited battle.

[gila]

You make the battle you want,by changeing the VH's value and/or location.
In other words, by simply modifing your goals,the hint is to change VH's

[troopie]

For the footies, urban fighting is a bugger. Plenty of artillery is a necessity, if you don't mind tearing up the city. Think grenades, lots of them, Short range automatic weapons, smgs really come into their own here. Satchel charges and flamethrowers are also a good idea. Armoured vehicles should advance slowly, never out of the range of the infantry. Infantry should move according to opportunity.

Defending? Lots of antitank weapons. Launch holding attacks to stop probes and take out armour. Heavy machine guns and snipers can pin enemy down in open areas like plazas and parks. Have a suffiency of artillery.

troopie

[gabeeg]

I only move one hex at a time in an urban setting as a rule (though all rules have to be broken some times) and I let my Engineers and Commando units take the lead with their smgs, flame throwers, copious smoke and grenades, and satchel charges. One thing dangerous about towns/cities is that you can get lulled into setting up defensively or moving slowly not wanting to give up a hard won set of buildings...then you can become a concentrated lump of an arty target.

[void1984]

Additionally to what has been mentioned above, use a support of SP-guns with large caliber. Accuracy is not an issue when you want so shoot just at the other side of the road.

[Griefbringer]

Originally Posted by void1984

Additionally to what has been mentioned above, use a support of SP-guns with large caliber.

For a particularly nasty (and maybe a bit gamey) variant of this theme, one could also try using German self-propelled rocket launchers with 32 cm flame rockets for direct fire. Those tend to cause rather insane amounts of suppression just hitting the same hex.

However, the amount of rockets per vehicle is rather limited, so they need to be used carefully, and those vehicles can be quite vulnerable to anti-tank fire.

Also, scouts with SMGs can be handy in an urban environment - presuming that the enemy is somewhat suppressed, you might be able to move these into a good firing position without enemy noticing and then unleash a few good burst, making it easier for your main force to immediately follow up and mob up the (now hopefully very seriously suppressed) survivors. Of course if the scouts end up receiving fire from any unsuppressed enemy, they might suffer quite badly.

Engineering tanks (like M4 dozers) can be useful for demolishing houses with a reduced risk of getting immobilised - thus providing other tanks with new avenues to advance through into a good firing position.

[runequester]

In cities, dense forest, jungle etc, it is well worth simply picking a narrow objective and going for that, rather than trying to hit everything.

That sort of terrain overwhelmingly favours the defense, so you are often better off "defending forward". Rush to take an area, then try to set up as defensive positions as possible.

[gila]

Limited objectives is key with urban warfare,and decide your goals.

If you can succeed doing better,then go for it!

This will make urban conflicts less imitating.

In real life,would a commander insist on taking every flag at the sake of losing too many lives?

Same goes in this game