Microsoft Close Combat - Manual (Page 59)

58 Close Combat
When you fire smoke rounds, the smoke lasts approximately one minute; the
smoke is thickest when the rounds first go off. Smoke plumes are as wide as they
are tall. Because the game assumes that a light wind is blowing from west to east,
you should try to keep the smoke between your troops and the enemy. Time your
smoke rounds and assault with these factors in mind.
As the German commander, you shouldn’t defend positions to the last man.
Defend a position as long as you can inflict more casualties than you receive, then
move to another position; force the Americans to attack you and look for opportu-
nities to counterattack.
Game Play Tips
This section lists game play tips according to the following categories:
• Infantry tips
• Vehicle tips
• Weapons tips
• General tips
Infantry Tips
You can use the tips in this section when issuing commands to your infantry
teams. For information on the factors affecting infantry team effectiveness and
performance, see “Monitoring the Game” in Chapter 2, “Setup and Game Play.”
• Don’t order your infantry teams to move through open terrain within the
enemy’s line of sight unless you provide suppression fire.
• Don’t order an assault against an enemy position unless you have numerical
or firepower superiority. You should not order a team of five soldiers with
rifles to assault a position held by 10 enemy soldiers with a machine gun.
• Use smoke to cover the movements of your attacking team or teams. Provid-
ing a covering smoke screen diminishes the enemy’s ability to hit the attack-
ers. This keeps your team’s effectiveness and morale high, which increases
your chances of success.
• Use smoke whenever you can; fire into any smoke that the enemy creates.
• Don’t order mortar or machine gun teams to move as part of an assault. When
teams move mortars and machine guns, their fatigue levels go up; increased
fatigue means the team will respond more slowly to an order to fire and the
fire will be less accurate than that of a well-rested team. You should consider
the deployment of such teams carefully; you’ll want to position them where
they can provide suppression fire for more than one infantry team.