While I make no claim to be a tactics god, I do feel I have learned a few lessons, which may be of use to some of you who are brand new to Combat Mission. What I will discuss here, many of the veteran players will probably already know, but to you new Canadian Combat Mission gamers it may be worth your while to try to apply some of this knowledge.

         The first thing I'll cover is the infamous "Hull Down" Position. What is Hull down? Hull down, simply means that in relation to your target, your tank or armoured fighting vehicle (called AFV from here on in) presents only its turret or a small portion of its body to the enemy who you are targeting/is targeting you. The hull, or main body of your AFV is out of the enemy's line of sight (LOS). When you present the enemy with a hull down position, you give him less to shoot at and usually, the part that he does have to shoot at is one of the most thickly armoured parts of your tank - the turret. In addition, you may be harder to spot, since you are providing a smaller target. Ideally it would be nice to get into a hull down position every time, however this will not be possible. Your opponent should be doing everything in his power to nullify the advantages you have in a hull down position. One thing to keep in mind is that you are using the terrain as cover, putting a chunk of it in front of you to obscure your AFVs hull. This may sound like a redundant statement, but the reason I mention this is that some people have learned the hard way, that just because you are hull down to one target, doesn't mean you are hull down period. Let me illustrate. Imagine you're are commanding a Canadian Firefly. You are hull down behind a ridgeline that runs east-west, facing an approaching Tiger at 12 'o clock. Right now, your turret is exposed to the Tiger. Depending on the range, he may not even see you yet. If he does, he'll have a harder time scoring a hit and at that his rounds may still ricochet. Now, in addition to the Tiger at the 12, you have a new Tiger appear at your 3 'o clock on your side of the ridgeline. The new Tiger at the 3 will not suffer any hull down penalties, as you are not hull down to him at the 3, only to the Tiger at the 12. By the way, as the Canadian Firefly commander I like to call this type of a situation "bad scoobies". ;-)
The importance of hull down is it may allow you to use a lesser tank against an opponent who may have a better tank, particularly in terms of armour. This having been said I should point out to that being hull down does not make you invulnerable, it simply gives you an advantage. Keeping that advantage is something your forces will have to collectively work towards and is a tactical consideration more determined my your general plan or objective, respective to the strength of the enemy you are facing.

         Next is the issue of Angles. While in all reality this is complex issue, I will try and deal with some of its more simple elements as they are related to the game. When you select a unit and hit enter, an information box pops up. This box contains a lot of VERY useful information. It will tell you, amongst other things, what the selected unit's armament is and for AFVs with main guns, what the velocity, range and rough chances of penetration at range are. In addition, you will notice a series of angles, 0, 30 and 60 degrees, which are rough guidelines to the slope of a unit's armour. These rough guidelines should give you a rough idea of what kind of performance to expect from the armour of your AFV or the enemy's. The importance of angles has to do with armour thickness and slope and how that relates to anti-armour fire.
To put this into perspective, using the example from earlier, the Tiger at the 12 'o clock from your Firefly may be in danger or being destroyed. This is because portions of its armour are at a 0 degrees angle, particularly its upper hull. This means that, depending on the range, when your Firefly fires, there is a higher chance that the round will not bounce off, rather it will dig into the armour, attempting to penetrate. Lets say for the purposes of this example that the Tiger at 12 'o clock is at 1,000m and not hull down to the Firefly. It has 100mm for frontal upper hull armour, roughly sloped at 10 degrees. Then consider the fact that a standard Armour Piercing round (AP) for a Firefly is capable of penetrating 126mm or armour with a slope of 0 degrees. You will quickly appreciate that the Firefly has a very real chance of killing the Tiger with a shot through its frontal armour even at 1,000m. This brings me to my next related point. Tanks are armoured, yes, but the thickness of that armour is not uniform. The Tiger for instance, does not have 100mm of armour on all sides and portions of its body. Usually, an AFVs armour is thickest in the front, giving extra protection to the front of the Gun as it is mounted in the turret (this is called a mantlet) as well as the front of the upper and lower hull. The sides are given the next priority, but are usually substantially less well armoured. Next is the backside of the AFV, which while armoured, may not have much armour. Lastly is the AFVs top armour, this is almost always the thinnest of all, sometimes being non-existent in some tank destroyers. So, one way of looking at an AFV, particularly if you are using an inferior weapon, is to see the weak spots, generally the sides, back and the top. Penetration of these weaker areas by lesser weapons is possible, provided the enemy presents them to you. Of course, the enemy will probably not co-operate if he knows what you have in store for him, so you must be creative in how you employ your anti-armour assets in oder to create opportunities to shoot at these weak spots.

         Next is the topic of Range. It is common sense for the most part, but again for the newer players it may need discussion. Range is important, as it determines the effectiveness and accuracy of weapons. The closer your opponent gets, the better your chances are of penetrating the armour of his AFVs. Again using the example of the Tiger, at 1,000m your Firefly was able to penetrate 126mm or armour, roughly sloped at 10 degrees. However, this performance increases dramatically when you move the Tiger to within 100m where the Firefly is now able to penetrate 148mm or armour sloped at roughly 10 degrees. In addition to its increased ability to penetrate with closer ranges, also comes the fact that accuracy improves. At 1,000m the Tiger is little more than a blip on the horizon. At 100m, the Tiger is beginning to fill your gunner's sights, making it increasingly harder for him to miss.

         Lastly, is one of the more important lessons an AFV commander must learn how to use the terrain to move his AFVs closer to the enemy without being destroyed. You may have the mightiest AFV on the battlefield, but if you can't get it to battle without it getting killed its useless to you. Considering terrain includes a few things, elevation, cover and concealment, Lines of sight and possible locations of good enemy defensive positions. In terms of elevation, the simple fact is, if a hill is say 20 feet tall, and your tank is 10feet tall, enemy rounds will have to shoot through the hill to get to you - which isn't going to happen. Never crest a hill, which means never drive right to the top of a hill. Once you get there, you may have a hell of a view, but now every enemy anti-armour weapon has you fixed in their sights. Moreover, if you're trying to conduct an infiltration attack (sneaking up on the enemy and letting him have it at close range from out of nowhere) you will compromise the location of your force. Another important point is that you don't always have to drive in a straight line towards the enemy. Keep in mind though, that the enemy probably is prepared for but not expecting you in open areas, and will probably expect you to use the terrain until your ready to deal with him, so he may deploy anti-armour assets to prevent you from flanking him or making too much headway towards him. You must constantly watch the terrain for "good spots" for the enemy to set ambushes or defences. More on that later. The ground also consists of features like trees and other vegetation, addition to elevations. For the most part, this does nothing to stop bullets, but it may prevent the enemy from seeing you in order to shoot at you. Another though is to periodically hide your AFVs depending on how much time you have. An AFV on hide has its engine on a low idle, making it harder to hear, and therefore detect. As well, an enemy may judge sightings of your vehicles and anticipate their arrival at particular points, which he has accordingly timed Artillery for. As for vision, staying unbuttoned gives you a better view, and a better chance to spot enemy units lying in ambush, but it also provides enemy snipers and Infantry with targets. Depending on the experience of your AFVs crew, you may not be able to take to many casualties before your crew decides its time to abandon their AFV or drive it backwards to safety, thus eliminating its contribution to your firepower. This becomes particularly apparent when you lose the AFV commander. In general, being able to manoeuvre your AFVs into a position to deal with the enemy on your terms may be difficult with your AFVs alone, particularly if they are buttoned up. This is why it is imperative that you learn to use Infantry and smaller vehicles (like jeeps, scout cars etc.) to scout the land ahead of the AFVs. Many times, they may take fire, triggering enemy ambushes prematurely. However, there will be times where you may not have too many turns to do a battle. In this case, you will not be able to afford the time it takes for you reconnaissance elements to scout ahead. This will in turn force you into a situation where you may have to drive towards the enemy at full speed, disregarding cover and concealment. This is not preferable, but sometimes necessary. If you have the time, use it to carefully check ahead for your AFVs. This way you will hopefully spot any ambushes or defensives, which the enemy may have planted for you. Infantry, are good to use as they cover a lot of ground and have the firepower to attack softer units, like enemy AT guns. As well, they provide multiple targets, which take time and a lot of firepower to eliminate. Infantry are relatively slow, carry much more limited amounts of ammunition and tire quickly. Offsetting this though, they are usually harder to detect, particularly in wooded areas. Smaller vehicles, like scout cars, are also good to use, as they are generally faster than Infantry, and may also have a better spotting ability. In addition, its quite possible the enemy will mistake a small scout car as light armour, thus creating a false threat. Regardless of what you use to look ahead, one thing to constantly be conscious of is lines of sight. Sometimes you may discover "gaps" in hills, buildings or trees for example, where you have a good clean line of sight, or alternately the enemy has a good clean line of sight on you. Watching out for gaps or possible arcs of fire, which present either you or your enemies with good clear shots is vital. You may not always see where the enemy is initially shooting from. It is for this reason that you must be vigilant in checking where possible shooters could be. As well, you may also use this skill to help set up ambushes of your own. These are some of the basics for commanding AFVs. One last thing to remember is that battles don't revolve around AFVs, they revolve around accomplished objectives. So if that means that if other assets, like Infantry, Artillery and Anti-Tanks guns are more likely to accomplish the objectives, they should be utilized instead. Ideally one would always have a combined arms force, capable of exploiting whatever elements are needed to win the battle. However, the reality is and was that commanders didn't always have everything they needed to do the job. That having been said, it is therefore worthwhile to breakdown individual tactics for separate weapon systems and units as well while also learning to assimilate them into combined arms operations.

         Hopefully this "tactics guide for armour" will have been of some use to the newer Canadian Combat Mission gamers. For all the old grognards this should largely be a review, no doubt filled with a few minor discrepancies.