Battle Technique - Using Listening Halts

When moving a squad or a platoon formation and enemy contact is likely, it is good practice to always have at least one team in each squad remain stationary while the other(s) are moving.  This is because, in the game, as in real life, a stationary individual can better listen for enemy sound contact than a moving one.  Combat Mission actually does a very good job of recreating this.  I will pause these teams when working with others from 10-15 seconds (sometimes longer for variation).

Also, an infantry team can identify sound contacts far better than a vehicle can.. so leading your armor with infantry, especially when in close terrain (woods, towns, etc.) is highly recommended.

If you have a lone scout team moving ahead of or to the flank of a larger formation, then that unit needs to stop or pause for a listening halt every turn...  I usually will pause these teams for between 15 and 30 seconds to give them a longer window of opportunity to "listen" for enemy sound contacts.

Following is a composite image from my CMRT BETA AAR illustrating all of the movement orders for an entire platoon that is scouting the woods they are moving through... it shows built in Listening Halts, and how I set movement on short movement legs in order to ensure at least one team from each squad was stationary while the others were moving.

Often one sound contact is enough for a player to get a good feel for an enemy unit's position.. as shown in this image from my CMRT Germans v Russian SMGs in Woods AAR .  In this game, after this contact ran into one of my units, I moved one team back (as illustrated by the blue arrow and created a kill-sack my opponent walked into over the next couple of turns... no sound contacts were visible so I determined I could leave all of my other units in position.

Several sound contacts can tell you a lot about enemy intent and concentrations, as in this image, (from the same AAR), showing (top) beginning of the turn (no contacts), and the end of turn (with several sound contacts).

A lot can be done with this information.

In this following image, again from the same AAR, I have identified, through sound contacts, my opponent's entire deployment.  At this stage of the fight, I don't think he had a good feel for my unit positions at all.

On the left in this image I had two teams using listening halts as they scouted the woods they were in, but after finding none and after identifying the sound contacts as shown, I could safely determine that my opponent had stuffed everything on my right side and could then, with this information advantage, start to plan for my reserves to launch a flanking counter-attack.