Stupid Question: Single Team Squads

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Truscott Trotter
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Re: Stupid Question: Single Team Squads

Post by Truscott Trotter »

And the poor old Russians too dumb to underdtand the concept of crouching down in the bushes :)
jdg
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Re: Stupid Question: Single Team Squads

Post by jdg »

"The difference is the US is a single team so can activate on a 1 and can ambush."

I don't believe that is correct. I think it is a miss print and the armored rifles are intended to be treated as a squad without teams.

The armored rifle companies ever had a training manual developed for them during the war so their training was up the divisions some used the manual for rifle companies others developed there own doctrines. Not sure who Rich went with the no teams squad. Maybe because he couldn't find anything specifically on the armored rifles.
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Arlequín
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Re: Stupid Question: Single Team Squads

Post by Arlequín »

Well they did use the infantry manuals at first, but they had their own training programme from September 1943 (TP7-1), their own TOEs from the same time and their own field manuals from November 1944 (FM17- 40 and 42).

... but I do think you are correct in that 'team' is a typo for 'squad'. The idea of a force that cannot use any '2' rolls, other than to form a '3', and needs a whole load of rolls of '1' to do most anything, does not sound like CoC as we know it.

Armoured infantry squads also had a staff sergeant as squad leader, assisted by a sergeant, each leading a half squad, as opposed to the sergeant of a standard rifle squad. With the addition of the selection process for the armoured infantry, you could also argue for two JLs per squad. The US armoured infantry units were actually originally inspired on the German Sd.Kfz 250 units, but with a single vehicle, rather than two.
batesmotel34
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Re: Stupid Question: Single Team Squads

Post by batesmotel34 »

Rich did agree that single team sections should be treated like the Soviet sections when under a barrage when I asked in an earlier thread, e.g. roll twice against them. He certainly didn't say that they should be treated as having no teams.

I've played them as activatable on a 1 or a 2 as a team or a section so they are more flexible than the Soviet squads but still suffer the disadvantage that they can't do more than one different action in a phase like multiple teams can.

Chris
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Truscott Trotter
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Re: Stupid Question: Single Team Squads

Post by Truscott Trotter »

Thats how I would play it and how I understood Rich intended for US AR
Soviets have no teams
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Arlequín
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Re: Stupid Question: Single Team Squads

Post by Arlequín »

Works for me... sufficient enhancement without making them more than they were.
jdg
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Re: Stupid Question: Single Team Squads

Post by jdg »

Right, I should have said that the majority didn't get manuals in time be of use before they were sent to Europe.
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Arlequín
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Re: Stupid Question: Single Team Squads

Post by Arlequín »

No you were essentially right, I was just being pedantic. The manual was probably used as tinder anyway, AIBs had been doing their own thing for a while before the manual appeared and were unlikely to change everything just because the FM said so.
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Truscott Trotter
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Re: Stupid Question: Single Team Squads

Post by Truscott Trotter »

Still does not explain why the Soviet squad cannot ambush like the Yanks - the poor old Ivans just stand in the bushes scratching their heads while their sergeant tries to explaining the concept of crouching down behind the bushes :)
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Re: Stupid Question: Single Team Squads

Post by Truscott Trotter »

After many hours searching an registering with World Public Library ($8.95) I now have a copy of TACTICS OF AMBUSH By Col. Pavel Rizin published in US Fields Artillery Journal 1942
Extract below
A carefully prepared ambush makes it possible to inflict
heavy losses on a numerically superior enemy. Success
depends upon the suddenness and speed of the action.
Sudden fire from a well-camouflaged group of troops or
separate machine guns, followed by a bayonet charge,
invariably proves successful.
The slightest neglect or too hurried preparation, on the
other hand, may lead to the failure of the ambush. Not long
ago an ambush of two infantary platoons under Lieutenant
Strelnikov was stationed on a road along which an enemy
infantry column was expected to arrive. The lieutenant placed
his men in position. About a platoon of enemy infantry
appeared on the road, the vanguard of a column two
companies strong. When they arrived at the ambushed point,
Lieutenant Strelnikov gave the order to fire. The vanguard
was almost annihilated, but the column advancing behind
them, hearing the firing, immediately extended in open order
and prepared to give battle. The ambushers could only retreat.
This ambush failed because the lieutenant gave the
order to fire prematurely. He should have let the vanguard
pass, awaited the approach of the main body, and poured
his fire suddenly into that column. It would have been
better to split the ambush itself into several groups in
different places, instead of keeping them all together, so
that they could fire on the enemy from several directions
simultaneously and at the same time confuse him with
regard to the size of the ambush.
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