Script for Company Challenge 5: Soviet Rifle 44 Company (Patreon)

The Soviets are always a little weird, this company definitely stands out from the crowd.***

Welcome back to Combat Mission Red Thunder for the Soviet attempt at our Company Challenge. The map converted over nice and easily, though again the Battle for Normandy bocage is not a feature so we’ll have some hedge-phasing, and for some reason the sides are backwards. Everyone has the right units, but the defenders are the Allied side and the attackers are the Axis side… meaning our Soviets will have grey icons and the Germans will have green ones. It’s not going to mess with the scenario at all, but it might look a bit strange if you’re used it being the other way round.

What will mess with the scenario though is the fact that by now I know it back-to-front. In a sense, I’ve ‘solved’ it: I’ve played it so many times now that I’ve got a good grip on the terrain, the multiple defensive layouts and the best ways for getting the job done. And that starts to compromise the quantitative results a bit.

For instance, in the last one the Italians basically cut out the break-in battle by exploiting the mortar support more effectively than the Americans, Germans and British. So we have to think about whether or not to do that again: on the one hand, it’s clearly the superior option (providing it works). On the other, does using it as a kind of tactical shortcut start invalidating the earlier runs?

From my perspective, I think there are two points here. First, the quantitative data we’re getting out of this series- time taken, casualties, ammo expenditure, all that- is pretty much indicative only. Each company is getting a sample of one and all of these elements can be pretty swingy depending on tactical choices. They’re definitely really interesting, and they can throw some light on the qualitative stuff, but I think the more useful conclusions are coming from the qualitative side.

Second, I think it would be a bit disingenuous to start ruling out tactical options because they would work too well. That’s not what this is about.

Soviets

Of course, a non-trivial factor in this is that the Soviet Rifle Company with the 44 type organisation we’re going to be testing this time probably needs all the help it can get.

Firstly, it weighs in at 356 points… which is actually less than the defenders who have 482. One of the reasons for this is that it’s the smallest company we’re testing here with only 88 bodies in total.

There are the usual three triangular platoons, but the squads are only 7 men strong. Instead of there being a detached platoon HQ, the platoon commander simply leads the 1st squad, bringing them up to 8 men and considerably limiting his flexibility.

Unlike any of the other companies, the Soviets have two very different basic squad types: rifle and submachinegun. All squads have a single DP-28 light machinegun and squad leaders are armed with SMGs and then individual soldiers are armed with rifles or SMGs depending on squad type.

The squads themselves are grouped together by platoon, so the company has one SMG platoon and two rifle platoons.

Then we have a handful of small attachments. Each platoon has a two man sniper team, the company has a single heavy machinegun team and an anti-tank rifle platoon armed with PTRD AT rifles.

In short, the low QB points costs seems like the result of understrength squads and a collection of itty-bitty attachments. It’s worth noting for the Eastern Front experts out there that this TOE doesn’t match up with the TOE you might find in some other places.

One extrinsic advantage they have over the other companies though is that at least in Combat Mission, the Soviets split their medium mortars into trios instead of pairs. So in this run the supporting mortars have an extra tube and a few more rounds.

And I think, like the Italians, it’s going to come down to the mortars. I really don’t think the Soviet squads have the firepower to force their way forward alone: the DP-28 can’t put a significant amount of fire out and the individual squads don’t have enough bodies to mass riflemen… an issue exacerbated by the fact that one of the platoons is armed SMGs and can only make a minimal contribution beyond 200m.

The SMG platoon is a really interesting asset. It clearly has the potential to dominate at close quarters, but it has to get to close quarters and all those automatic weapons are going to chew through ammunition like crazy. So although it’s a powerful tool, the SMG platoon may also be a single-use tool.

Given my experience of the scenario so far, I think the SMG platoon is going to be most effective clearing the objective itself, so I need to conduct the break-in with the rifle platoons, then bring the SMGs up and let them loose.

Kick Off

Overall, I’m basically following the same plan I used with the Italians, though obviously the very different company organisation of the Soviets means there are some changes. The SMG platoon is basically out of the fight: they can’t contribute to any supporting fires because their weapons are too short ranged and I don’t want to send them forward first because I want them intact to clear the objective.

That means I only really have the two rifle platoons to use for the break-in, one of which needs to advance. So ultimately, my supporting fire is coming from a single platoon and the company Maxim gun: not a tremendous amount of firepower.

But the mortars make up for that. An extra tube and 20 more HE bombs go a long way- the barrage was effective enough with the Italians, so I extended it right a bit here to cover more frontage.

The centre right hedgerow- the one I’m aiming to penetrate here- is definitely occupied though. Even before the mortars start, some of my support-by-fire elements spot and engage the enemy anti-tank gun.

This is in a very weird position, straddling the bocage and facing off to the left… leaving the crew exposed and easily picked off. Clearly, like the Italian run, converting the maps isn’t quite carrying the AI plans across correctly. That is a potential position for the PaK40 in one of the AI plans… but it is obviously supposed to be on the other side of the bocage facing towards the attackers.

I’m not sure it makes that much difference in these circumstances though: the mortars would have neutralised the gun if it was in the right position.

Pushing 3rd Platoon through the bocage and forward, they somewhat unexpectedly come under fire from building Blue 1. This is new, but not particularly effective. 3rd Platoon’s sniper pair finds the kink unoccupied, but as the other squads come up they spot an enemy HMG team across from them.

This looks like it’s already taken some casualties from the mortars and they quickly finish them off from the hedgerow.

Moving up to the edge of the centre right compound, 3rd Platoon gets engaged from Building Blue 5, but it’s nothing they can’t handle. With one squad covering the right, 3rd Platoon uses another to suppress the building and its last squad to move up and clear it.

That’s two more enemy casualties- it turns out they were the AT gun’s ammo bearer team. The PaK40 is obviously out of the fight as well, plus the HMG on the right, and there are another two fire-team’s worth of dead Germans on this bocage line killed by the mortars… where the Italians attacked into a gap, it looks like the Soviets have gouged a gaping hole in the defence.

Pressing Forward

That’s the break-in achieved then: we’re ten minutes in, the SMG platoon has come up and I’m getting ready to go on. I had intended to bring 2nd Platoon and the Maxim up as well, but the Germans in Blue 1 have been taking potshots at my advancing troops in the field, so they’ve stayed behind to keep some fire on them.

Moving up to attack the White House is slightly different than any of the preceding runs: the mortars have managed to collapse Blue 3, opened up enemy sightlines on that flank. So I weight my attack to the right instead. Squads from 3rd Platoon move into Blues 4 and 5, while two of the SMG platoon squads occupy Blues 6 and 7.

There’s a panzershreck team in the open outside Yellow 10 that gets immediately wiped out, but some return fire from the enemy in Blue 1, Blue 2 and the White House.

The last two buildings get drowned in a torrent of automatic fire. The Germans in Blue 2 in particular, the enemy platoon HQ, are rapidly overwhelmed, taking casualties and then trying to surrender. The enemy in the White House put up more resistance, but they lose the firefight towards the end of the turn when their MG has to reload.

Blue 1 is a harder nut to crack, thanks to the awkward geometry of its little compound, but in the next few turns I punch a couple of SMG squads into Blue 2 and grind them down. This reveals another German fire team across the road in Yellow 8 and the firefight gains a sharp edge that sees the SMG Platoon HQ put their pixeltruppen hats on run out into the street in panic. By that point though, the firefight’s been won and the enemy overwhelmed.

It’s hardly been bloodless- the Soviets have lost 8 men- but the Germans are now down three more fire teams, their platoon HQ and a panzershreck team.

Exploiting

With Blue 1 dealt with, I can start bringing 2nd Platoon and the Maxim up, which I’m starting to feel like I might need. Dashing one of the SMG squads across the road to try and secure the prisoners in the White House and Yellow 8 sees them shot up by flanking fire coming down the street.

There’s obviously another German HMGs out there. With that squad and the platoon HQ both down to four men, I only have one intact squad in the SMG platoon and they’re down to about 50 rounds each. They might be able to contribute a little by mopping up, but I don’t think they’re going to be able to make it through any kind of extended firefight.

So as well as bringing 2nd Platoon up to continue clearing the objective, I also gather the AT rifle platoon up under the Company commander and start funnelling them forward as a reserve.

Once they arrive, I want to send 2nd Platoon around the back of the objective to roll up the Yellow buildings from the flank. To do that, they have to cross the road, which is covered by the enemy HMG team on the far left. My initial plan for this was to use all the squads in the centre to pop smoke… but it turns out they don’t actually carry any smoke grenades.

In the end, I just gritted my teeth and sprinted the entire platoon across, going up the lane next to Yellow 10. That way the HMG only a keyhole shot on them, which it failed to exploit.

Mopping Up

From there, 2nd Platoon has a relatively easy time. There are more German defenders about: a fire team in Yellow 4 opens up on Blue 1 where I’m trying to establish a base of fire, but they’re quickly sorted out.

Yellow 3 is clear, for the first time in all these runs, but it turns out the usual HMG team in there is only a building over in Yellow 2. They cut down 2nd Platoon’s probing sniper pair, but after getting their building shot-up, they offer minimal resistance when they’re stormed.

Occupying the left-most Yellow buildings gets me eyes on the final two enemy units: the HMG team on the map edge and a panzershreck team which is, for some reason lying in the middle of a field.

But before I can mop them up, the AI throws the towel in and surrenders.

Endex

Interestingly, this translates into a draw. That’s thanks to the points allocations I put in: the Soviets actually crossed the threshold for ammo expenditure, giving the defenders 1000 points.

That’s just me using CM’s scoring to try and get a data-point though. I think we can safely say the Soviets won here.

Quantitatives

Overall, they forced a surrender in 32 minutes and suffered 18 casualties, or 20%. The Germans sustained 52 casualties, including 15 prisoners, or 100% in CM terms because they gave up. The Soviets secured the objective and stayed above the game’s condition threshold, but they did use a lot of ammo. They failed CM’s ammo expenditure threshold, with a raw percentage of 50.58% remaining.

Trying to slot the Soviets into our leaderboard, they’re second for time- only a minute slower than the Italians, have the lowest overall casualties and 2nd lowest percentage losses, they’re second in kills inflicted after the Americans and they’re equal first with everyone for objective and condition, but last for both ammo categories. Obviously because we’re ranking everyone by category, some of the other scores have changed a bit to make room for the Soviets and they end up 21 points.

That actually puts them second after the US Rifle company, with the Germans coming in third and the Brits and Italians sharing fourth place.

That’s the quantitative stuff though- like I said at the beginning, I probably wouldn’t put too much stock in the data here. It can give us some insights, but especially given the impact of properly exploiting the mortars on the Italian and Soviet runs, as well as the occasional map conversion weirdness, it’s not exactly a level playing field.

Qualitatives

But we’ve definitely got a lot to talk about on the qualitative side.

(Fires vs TOE)

Probably the biggest point of interest is that the break-in was almost identical to that of the Italians. There were more Germans in the way this time, but for the most part they got wiped out by the mortar support. The fact that two companies with radically different tables of organisation and equipment made the same progress in the same amount of time really highlights how much proper integration of mortar or artillery support matters.

Given that fires are such a decisive enabler if used correctly… we have to consider how much the tactical choices around integrating and exploiting them override the tactical choices organic to the various company TOEs that we’ve been testing here.

In other words, I think both the Italians and the Soviets would have had a much harder time without the mortar support… while it wouldn’t have made that much of a difference for the Americans, Germans or British. That’s definitely going to be something to think about for the next batch of tests.

Aside from the criticality of the mortars, there were definitely some interesting aspects to the Soviet run. First, the mix of differently armed platoons was very different to the other companies.

(Rifle-SMG Split)

Having a 2-1 rifle-SMG split meant that- at ranges greater than 200m, the company might as well only have the two rifle platoons. But on getting into close range with the enemy, the SMG troops put out so much automatic fire that they rapidly use up their ammunition. We saw both of these issues with the break-in and then the immediate exploitation towards the White House.

The presence of the company Maxim machinegun helps alleviate the first problem a little bit, but it’s just one machinegun that can engage one target at once- it’s not a replacement for an entire platoon’s worth of fire. In the event, it wasn’t a problem because the mortars did the heavy lifting, but without them, I suspect the Soviets would have had a lot of trouble.

That translates into using both rifle platoons as a base of fire element, but fire alone is indecisive: someone needs to go forward. That can only be the SMG platoon, which is almost a single-use element thanks to its ammo consumption... so in some respects you could argue that this Soviet rifle company has a single attack in it.

The two rifle platoons and the machinegun suppress the enemy, the SMG platoon assaults, and then the support by fire elements consolidate on the objective. As a broad outline, this is a pretty restrictive playbook. Once you involve supporting arms though- like we did in this run- options for the Soviet company have the potential to expand.

(One-Attack Force)

Nevertheless, I think the one-attack nature of the company shone through here. To begin with, it used about half of its ammunition up. That puts an immediate crimp on further operations: the company could be in serious difficultly if it is counter-attacked, moving on to attack more objectives in depth is probably a bad idea.

It’s worth noting as well that the Soviets had the least ammunition to begin with. The mean starting round count across all five companies we’ve tested this series is about 21,000 rounds. The Soviets not only have 12460 to begin with- which is the lowest behind the Italians at 16,000- but they also have the most automatic weapons thanks to the SMG platoon.

Likewise, the company has the fewest men. It might have taken the fewest casualties, but that’s still a rate of 20%. With only 7 or 8 men per squad, even a couple of casualties can really degrade the combat power of individual subunits. So in subsequent fighting, at least compared to the other companies, Soviet squads that have taken casualties are much more likely to need to be amalgamated in order to maintain useful squad sizes… something that can significantly reduce flexibility.

In other words, the Soviets feel like they have less staying power than the other companies. Once they’ve taken their objective, they’re probably best off switching to the defensive immediately and letting follow-on units pass through to continue the attack.

(ROF Test)

Somewhat hand-in-hand with this idea of resiliency, the Soviets scored some fairly middling results when put through the rate of fire test. The rifle squad has a big drop-off about 45 seconds in, the same time as the Germans and the rifle armed Italians- this is due to the testing unit conducting area fire and all the riflemen and LMGs having to reload at exactly the same time.

The SMGs are a bit higher and a bit more consistent- that’ll be to do with the test-target being 200m away. They’re not mag-dumping like they might do at close-quarters, they’re firing off bursts at long range for their weapons… so it’s maybe not a realistic indicator of how much fire they can put out.

Interestingly, both Soviets squads are maybe punching a bit above their weight considering their lower manpower, but that correspondingly means that their firepower is likely to take bigger hits as they suffer casualties. Hence, this resiliency problem compounds a bit.

(Snipers)

Something I haven’t talked about yet are the platoon sniper teams. A bit like the sniper pair in the British company, these are probably not at their best in this kind of offensive scenario. I pretty much used them as scouts and they got used up accordingly- two of the three teams were wiped out. The surviving team did rack up five kills though, so evidently they can get their hits in.

(ATR Platoon)

Similar, but with bigger weapons, is the anti-tank rifle platoon. I really couldn’t see much of a use for this here, though it would probably be useful consolidating on the objective if a mechanised counter-attack was in the offing.

Or, at least somewhat useful: there’s a reason why everyone else had moved on from anti-tank rifles to weapons firing shaped-charge ammunition. The ATR’s anti-tank capability is basically down at nuisance level, it’s more effective against lightly armoured vehicles like halftracks. So it does fill a niche… but it’s a very specific niche and in organic terms the Soviet infantry here is relying on anti-tank grenades and optimism.

Conclusion

Overall though, the Soviets did do better than I was expecting. They definitely punched above their Combat Mission QB point’s value and they pretty decisively outperformed the Italians, which is an important indicator because they followed the same plan.

At the same time though, they have some serious shortcomings outside the narrow context of this test. The combination of low manpower, small ammunition load and the rifle-SMG split significantly impacts their ability to perform follow-on operations. In addition they’re lacking some key enablers like effective anti-tank weapons, radios (though like the Italians, field telephones may or may not be simulated, it’s hard to tell) and even some basic stuff like smoke grenades.

All the companies will operate much more effectively as part of a combined arms team with artillery and armour support, but like the Brits and the Italians I think the Soviet rifle company definitely needs that integration a lot more than the Americans and the Germans.

So, that’s Combat Mission’s five basic rifle companies covered. This series has been a bit of an experiment, but I think it’s put out some really interesting results and I want to tidy up the process, improve the scenario and put some more modern formations through it next.

Hope you all enjoyed this and found it as interesting as I did, if you’d like to watch these videos early and support the channel, you can do so via Patreon and Youtube memberships. Whether you do or not, thanks for watching and I’ll catch you in the next one.