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Silly question? maybe?

V

Vox

Guest
So I've been playing CM from the beginning of time. But I still have a silly question about the combine squad command. What does it do? it doest work like i think it should. at first when it came out i thought you could take 2 squads with 50+% casualties and combine them into one full squad. but no. then I thought maybe it will evenly divide squad members so that you have 2 fire team if one(ie. assault team) is wiped out. but no. can anyone help me understand this order? all it does for me is stack an entire team into one large team which you can no longer divide into any other teams. why would you want this? and why would you use it in game?
 
Thats what the manual says but anytime I do it, it does something like this. squad 1 has 3 troops in team A and one servings troop in team B. when hitting the combine squad order one would think it would take the 3 man team A, take one troop and move him over to team B so you end up with team A 2 men and team B 2 men. thats what i think of when i think of equalizing out the squad. but all it ever does is stack everyone into team A. even it i have a healthy squad of 8 it will stack all 8 into team A. is that what is intended to happen? and the worst part is i cant ever divide them into sub team after that, so no scout team no AT team no nothing.
 
oh i see so they will use action spots more efficiently if they are in one team as opposed to being in two? is that why you would do it? I guess i just don't see why having 1, 2 man team in a squad is better then having 2, 1 men teams in a squad Canadian cat, if your going to use them as on squad anyway at that point. so it just seems like a useless button. sorry im really not trying to be obtuse, i just dont see why you would care. do you see what im getting at. there must be some engine reason i dont know about or understand.
 
I have honestly never found much use for it. I could see how it might be helpful if you have several fragmented teams and you want to combine some of them so you have fewer "units" to click on to give orders to during a turn.
 
yeah and when you move them in to the same action spot they combine anyway. oh well thanks for everyone's help.
 
My BIG BIG BIG one is that you cant do any Admin order before you dismount. I hate losing a turn before i can tell them to have an assault or scout team. and also I would love to be able to put stuff back if you acquire something you didnt mean to. but yea if you have a tank or At gun crew they should be able to use and mount any tank or gun. I understand why just any trooper cant mount any tank or gun but a crew that is trained on the weapon should be able to push of the dead bodies and use any weapon of the type that they are trained on.(maybe i dont know the Military doctrine for such a thing)
 
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oh i see so they will use action spots more efficiently if they are in one team as opposed to being in two? is that why you would do it? I guess i just don't see why having 1, 2 man team in a squad is better then having 2, 1 men teams in a squad Canadian cat, if your going to use them as on squad anyway at that point. so it just seems like a useless button.

That's the idea. It is very rarely actually needed. I have only used it once or twice.
 
My BIG BIG BIG one is that you cant do any Admin order before you dismount. I hate losing a turn before i can tell them to have an assault or scout team. and also I would love to be able to put stuff back if you acquire something you didnt mean to. but yea if you have a tank or At gun crew they should be able to use and mount any tank or gun. I understand why just any trooper cant mount any tank or gun but a crew that is trained on the weapon should be able to push of the dead bodies and use any weapon of the type that they are trained on.(maybe i dont know the Military doctrine for such a thing)

I also wish there was a way to un-Acquire.

As for the ability to administratively split squads I try to do that during the Setup phase. It is useful to pre-split the squads in the Setup Phase and then cross load them so they don’t recombine. This also prevents the squads from redistributing ammo among teams. Example: A platoon has three squads that in turn have three teams. Unload squads & split into teams. B teams get back in same vehicles. A teams move one vehicle to right. C teams move one vehicle to the left. There is some randomness to squad splits. In setup you can combine and re-split until you get the split you want.
 
yeah thats a good idea never thought of it. Ill try it. But Im such a geek I dont think I can do it because its not how I image real military would do it. its gaming the game to much for me. Great idea maybe someone else will use it thanks for sharing.
 
Hang on, randomness in the "Split Squad" comand?

As far as I was aware, they split as per the columns in the UI:

e.g., this squad:
q37ucsH.png


"Split Squad" Will always split into two teams, one with the Leader, the PKM and two AKMS, and one with the Assistant leader, the chap with the RPG and the other AKMS, the left and right column.

These teams are also split across two action spots, these are the teams that the Assault command splits them into, etc.

That's the point of the "Combine Squads" button - it takes the above columns and reduces them to one. If you didn't, and the leftmost team lost three members, then one of the two action spots the team would deploy in would be occupied by a single guy, which means he can be left dangling as the other three guys take effective cover. It also means the team might be a fraction quicker to react, since they only need to find positions in a single action spot before finishing an order.

Useful? Occasionally. I'd rather they didn't get fragged at all, and especially in the modern games it's quite plausible that they'll get wiped out entirely. I don't think it's anywhere near as useful behaviour as, say, corner peeking or Hull Down, but it's a nice to have.
 
oh so its an action spot thing. so even thought the damaged squad is small enough to fit in a single action spot they will get spit if they are in two column and not one? is that right? if so I see the light.
 
Yup. For emphasis- imagine a twelve man squad, like the USMC ones, which split into A, B and C teams.

If B team gets killed, and C team loses three members, then there will be a squad with five members, which will be split over (up to) three action spots when in a single unit - one team of four, and one chap 16m away to the right.

That's obviously not ideal, so "Combine Squads" would make a single team of five guys, taking up a single spot.

Again, marginally useful, but it's not nothing.
 
The argument against that has been gaminess - buying a cheap tank with a great crew, and a great tank with a poor crew, and swapping them over.

I'm not sure I buy the logic really - there's plenty of gaminess that the game itself does nothing to stop (bombarding into setup zones, for an obvious example), but there it is.
 
@domfluff There are some random results when using the split commands, Assault, Scout etc. The "Split Squad" command works as you outlined. Very nice, informative post by the way.

I think there is some randomness with the other squad splitting commands because I don't always get the same results. As an example I like to split my WWII US Armored Inf. so the XO and Lt. are in different teams. With the XO and Lt in different teams you have two separate teams that can call for artillery. This organization can be achieved using the below method in the other thread. I don't always get the same result. But I try to make this split during the setup phase so I can recombine and administratively split again until I get the desired result.

Below is a thread with screenshots explaining the US Armored Infantry split that sometimes has random results.

http://community.battlefront.com/to...ntry-platoon-hq/?tab=comments#comment-1730271
 
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