Well... this was a surprise.

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Platoon Patrol 10: British Armoured Infantry

Welcome back to Combat Mission Shock Force 2, where the Brits are taking their first swing at the Platoon Patrol. Specifically, we’ve got some Armoured Infantry in FV510 Warrior IFVs. We haven’t quite gotten to the actual British infantry yet in the Unit Guides: the quick run-down is that armoured infantry platoons are organised into three 7-man strong sections with a good mix of small arms, plus a four man platoon HQ that includes a 51mm light mortar with both HE and smoke ammunition. The standard for the Platoon Patrol is to take the best equipment options available, so all the Warriors here are fitted with WRAP 2, giving them some much improved protection against HEAT warheads.

They’re going to be tackling a reinforced squad of much better trained and motivated US Marines defending one of five locations on our map. We’re starting from Entry Point 2 again, to cut a very long story short I checked out Echo and Charlie from a distance, then went to Bravo and Alpha before resigning myself to the reality that, once again, the Marines were over at Delta.

Contact

Approaching from Alpha, one of the Warriors took a few potshots when the enemy tried to snipe out the unbuttoned TC. The dinged Warrior didn’t get a spot, or even a contact icon, but the fire definitely came from Delta.

Delta is by far the most commonly attacked objective in the Platoon Patrol so far- to the extent that every now and again I have to check that the randomness is actually working- so I don’t think we need to go into all that much detail on my options.

I do need to develop this contact though. The Warrior platoon is spread over 300m between the Charlie orchard and one of the unnamed compounds closer to the map edge, with 2 section already dismounted and up on some of the rooftops to get a better view.

What I want to do is manoeuvre at arm’s length to get some solid spots, hopefully identifying the Marine’s SMAW teams so I can neutralise them before getting closer.

Delta is surrounded to the front and left by its own orchard, which is dense enough to make line of sight unreliable, so I decide to swing right. There’s a bit of elevation over there that offers both a better view into the Delta compound and some reverse slopes to hide behind.

So 2 and 3 Sections hold their positions around the unnamed compound, with their Warriors using their thermals on overwatch, while the Platoon HQ and 1 Section pass behind them and get up onto the higher ground.

The HQ team gets on top of a farm building. I want them as high as possible so they have more options for their mortar. 1 Section goes further to the right and dismounts behind the ridge the Strykers used on their run.

I’m a bit sloppy with their orders here: one of the fire teams ends up kneeling in the open where the Marines engage them and get some hits in. The Platoon HQ spots the offending enemy team: they’re on the wooded corner near Building D10. At the same time, Warrior C in the unnamed compound spots one of the SMAW teams: that’s in the rear on top of D6.

Engaging

So now I have something to work with and the Warriors engage with their cannons. I don’t have high expectations: the Rarden as modelled in CM has a very slow rate of fire and frequent interruptions to reload.

To start with, I’m not surprised. The D6 SMAW in particular is able to escape the worst of the fire going its way as any incoming 30mm rounds that make it past the intervening foliage have a tendency to skim past into the distance.

The D10 contact has a very different experience. Warrior B, out on the right, has enough elevation to be firing down on the Marines and rounds that fail to hit them directly impact the ground nearby. After a couple of turns, that enemy team is out of action.

Neutralising that corner presents an opportunity. There’s no sign of any other Marines in that area, I know that one of their SMAW teams is at the back on D6 where it can’t cover that corner and while I don’t know where the other one is, I feel like I would have spotted it by now if it was on any of the closer buildings.

In other words, it looks like the D10 corner is not only clear, but that I can approach it without too much risk. Granted, I don’t have good line of sight to the left side of the Delta compound and there might be something there with some antitank teeth. But at the same time, all those intervening trees in the Delta orchard work both ways for spotting, I’ll be rushing Warriors down the side of the irrigation ditch with their ERA panels facing the threat and if I can get some smoke in there I think they’ll have a solid chance to deposit their dismounts.

So I start remounting 3 section to make the run and trying to get the Platoon HQ to put some 51mm mortar smoke on the D10 corner.

The Run

Unfortunately, the mortar doesn’t seem to want to fire from the roof. Ordering them out and behind a hedge, the platoon HQ attracts some fire: this time from another Marine fire team in the undergrowth between D8 and the closer bridge.

In a way, that’s good news. With two of the three Marine rifle teams spotted, the chance that the third will be in position to cover the D10 corner seems pretty slim. It also allows me to engage them with more 30mm cannon fire and, again, Warrior B on the right proves to be an excellent shot.

On the other hand, the Platoon HQ is too busy avoiding getting shot to get any smoke out and to complicate things the D6 SMAW starts firing rockets at 1 section and Warrior B.

Luckily, 3 Section don’t need any help on the run in. While Warrior B is nailing the Marines near D8, Warrior D bumrushes down the side of the ditch, pops smoke and kicks 3 section out into the ditch.

The smoke drifts across between them and the compound, blinding any Marines in there but not the Warriors thanks to their thermals.

It’s looking good, but I’ve gotten very lucky here. The other Marine SMAW team is on the balcony of Building D3 where they can see behind the smoke. Warrior D only gets away with presenting its side armour because multiple incoming HEAT rockets catch on the trees between them and the enemy.

The Marines quickly get engaged by Warrior A, up by the Platoon HQ, then Warrior C back at the unnamed compound and finally Warrior D itself. The SMAW team gets plenty of 30mm HE back for its troubles, though I order Warrior D to switch to the coax and get 3 Section to join in from the ditch.

Thankfully, the SMAW gunner gets the message and takes cover, though that doesn’t save him from a 30mm round from Warrior A.

At the same time, the SMAW team on D6 has managed to repeatedly miss Warrior B and 1 section over the right. The Platoon HQ has finally got its eye in with the light mortar and manages to land a few close hits. One of them takes out the SMAW team number 2. A few turns later Warrior B cuts the actual gunner down with its coax.

The surviving SMAW team member up in D3 gets the same treatment from Warrior D and, all of a sudden, the AT threat has been pretty much neutralised. 3 Section has moved up to the edge of the Delta compound without any trouble and 2 Section is rushing in to back them up.

Mopping Up

Cautiously moving into the compound over the next turns, it’s clear that there’s still a little resistance on the right. 2 Section comes under fire from the old contact near D8, but shuffling the nearby Warriors about brings a torrent of coax fire into the fight and 2 Section’s A team was already moving down the ditch to flank.

A couple of hand grenades and some close range fire later, the incoming fire stops. Sending the B team in to check reveals that we’ve bagged the Marine HQ team as well as any survivors from the original contact.

That leaves just the one rifle team somewhere in Delta. 3 Section has gone left to check Building D3 and their B team stumbles onto the enemy as they probe into Building D4. The Marines are in the undergrowth next to D6 and get the drop on the Brits.

This is close range stuff, there are only 3 squaddies in D4 and they all get taken out pretty quickly.

But I know where the enemy is now and I can flex the rest of the platoon to take them out.

1 Section and the Platoon HQ both remount and start to swing round to the right to get the far flank working, while 2 section approach via D6 itself and Warrior D enters the compound to provide some close in support.

It’s all over a few turns later: suppressed by Warrior D’s chaingun, the Marines are pinned in place for 2 Section as they come in from the flank. A bit of close range mopping up and the enemy are all accounted for.

Endex

Overall, the British Armoured Infantry sustained 4 casualties. 1 from 1 Section near the start to some long range small arms fire, the other 3 were from 3 Section’s B team which got wiped out in Building D4.

Taking those losses away from the 1000 points the Brits got for securing the objective, they end up with a grand total of 963 points, scraping past the German Panzergrenadiers to slot into second place by a single point.

In fact, they actually had a very similar performance to the Panzergrenadiers in general. The Brits got the job done in 22 minutes with 16% dismount losses, compared to the German’s doing it in 26 minutes with 17%.

That’s all arbitrary stuff though. For me, I’m not going to lie: this was a bit of a surprise.

The Warriors

After doing the Unit Guide for the Warrior and testing out the 30mm Rarden cannon, I went into this thinking that the Warriors were a bit crap. I thought they didn’t have the firepower to get the job done, which would mean the dismounts would have to do more work and suffer more casualties as a result.

Instead, the Warriors actually inflicted most of the casualties: 14 out of the 19 total. And 8 of those were scored by Warrior B from its position on the higher ground to the right. There are a couple of things that might have influenced that.

Firstly, being at a higher elevation meant that it was firing down on its targets, which was more effective. Second, it was engaging enemy infantry in tiny patches of woodland. Infantry in Combat Mission do have a distressing tendency to cluster up in a big dogpile behind a single tree, which would obviously make that 30mm HE much more effective.

But, for want of a better term, the Warriors did have something of a sniper vibe to them. For all its failings, the Rarden cannon is definitely accurate and here at least I think we can safely say that that accuracy went a long way towards compensating for the atrocious rate of fire.

The Bumrush

It was basically the accurate fire of Warrior B that opened the way up for Warrior D to bumrush up to the objective and unload 3 section almost right on top of it, instead of them having to slog through the ditch like everyone else.

That manoeuvre was definitely a calculated risk. And it’s a risk I probably wouldn’t have taken if the Warriors didn’t have explosive reactive armour. I think they’re the first vehicle we’ve seen in the Platoon Patrol with ERA: having the potential to shrug off antitank weapons does provide a bit of a confidence boost.

That said, there was a SMAW team covering that angle and the only reason we didn’t get to see HEAT rocket vs Warrior addon armour was because a helpful tree ate several incoming shots.

If the platoon HQ had managed to get its act together and smoked up the D10 corner, we might have avoided getting engaged there at all. I’ll have to do some testing to get to grips with the 51mm as modelled in Combat Mission and see if I just dropped the ball, got unlucky with incoming enemy fire or there’s something else going on that stopped it getting its smoke out.

And of course, as per usual for NATO infantry, once the dismounts actually got onto the objective they cleaned up pretty fast. No big issues there, I think the casualties they got in this run fall into that familiar ‘cost of doing business in dense terrain’ category. My main concern- that they would get chewed up because the Warriors wouldn’t be able to help them- was entirely unfounded.

Conclusion

So, that’s the British Armoured Infantry storming through the Platoon Patrol like they’ve got something to prove. Like I said, much better than I was expecting. I really didn’t think they’d give the Marders a run for their money.

With them out of the way, we’re moving onto Group 6 where we’ve got a choice between Syrians in BTRs, Canadians in Nyala MRAPs, Dutch Mechanised in YPR-765s and US Heavy Infantry in Bradleys. Definitely a high-low mix in this group, interesting choices all around. As always for the long suffering Canadian fans, we will get through them all eventually.

That’s it for this video though. If you’d like to watch these 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.