Stratagies of War - Economy of Force

[Ratzki]

“In the utilization of a theatre of war, as in everything else, strategy calls for economy of strength. The less one can manage with, the better; but manage one must, and here, as in commerce, there is more to it than mere stinginess.”

Carl von Clausewitz
1780-1831

I thought that I would kick off the defensive strategies with a little quote from Clausewitz. What he says rings so true in Combat Mission. When you start a quick battle, both you and your enemy know that the player on the defensive side will have fewer points to spend on his forces then will the attacking player. If you have set up any other parameters, there too, the attacker will know just how and where your forces will be limited. Set-up zones, flag position, battle maps with an edge are just some of the facts that we have to deal with during play. On defence, we must be able to overcome these and other limitations so that we might be victorious. “The Perfect Economy Strategy” might just be the most important strategy we must master in order to be successful playing Combat Mission.
What is the perfect economy?... in short, it is managing your forces in order to get the most effect while using the fewest resources. Skills will only take us so far, we teeter with disaster by trying to surpass our limits. Seduced by the flags of victory, we overextend our forces, and our electronic soldiers end up spent, exhausted and vulnerable to enemy actions. You must know your forces limits, pick your fights carefully, consider the total cost of taking the flag or controlling that building. Do you have enough time, how about ammunition, can you afford to lose those men in order to gain or keep the objective. Everything must be considered before you start shooting. Is it better to wait for several turns or push for a head on counterattack, either way, you have to aim for your enemies weaknesses. Everything that you do on the battlefield has a cost, be it in time, ammunition, and of course casualties. Make the battle expensive for your opponent and cheap for you, this is fighting with “perfect economy”.
In 281 BC a war broke out between Rome and the city of Tarentum. The city, not known for it's military, hired King Pyrrhus to fight for them. Pyrrhus had a great reputation, he claimed to be directly descended from Achilles and was a cousin of Alexander the Great. King Pyrrhus crossed into Italy with what was the largest Greek army ever to do so, he had 20,000 foot soldiers, 3,000 cavalry, 2,000 bowmen and 20 war elephants. This army met the Romans near Heraclea, Pyrrhus was outnumbered and at one point in the battle, near defeat. Only the war elephants were able, at the last moment to turn the tide and send the Roman army into chaos. It was a great victory, but King Pyrrhus worried about his battle loses. Many veteran officers and soldiers had been killed, but the king pressed on and Rome responded by sending another army to meet Pyrrhus' forces. Next to the town of Asculum the foes met for the second time. Pyrrhus pulled out all the stops and after personally leading a violent charge managed to again defeat the Roman army. But the king's loses had been terrible, the ranks were decimated, and he too, was wounded from the fighting. When asked about his great victories, King Pyrrhus commented “If we defeat the Romans in one more such battle, we shall be totally ruined.” Truth be told, the king was already ruined. His remaining forces were too few and his Italian campaign was over.
From the battle at Asculum comes the term “Pyrrhic victory”. How often do you find yourself in the same condition as King Pyrrhus during a CM battle? You are able to push the enemy back, take or keep the objective, but with your ranks decimated, you are unable to hold on. Eventually, you yield the ground and flags to the enemy. If everyone was polled, how often do you think that players would report this happens?... I bet it is more often then we all imagine it could be. How do we let ourselves get into this position time and time again?... Is it the excitement of the prospects of gaining victory, do we only see what we want to see, ignore the difficulties and focus on only the gains. The farther that we go, the harder it is to step back and rationally reassess the situation. Everything seems well at first, but our costs mount and quickly spiral out of control, more poor choices lead to more mistakes, which lead to new and unforeseen problems, which in turn lead to more costs. Soon, any victories that we manage along the way become meaningless.
The more that you want the prize, the more you must examine what it will take to get it. This is where we can apply the “perfect economy” to our CM battle. As the defender, you will be tasked with preventing the enemy from gaining control of the victory flags, limiting your losses, and maximizing enemy losses. We have several weapons at our disposal to accomplish this task. Every weapon, every squad, every vehicle has a value. There is no such thing as a useless unit and combinations of different units can become very potent weapons when used together. Every force has a weak point, an Achilles heal, and every force has a strength somewhere, something that can be built on and if used effectively can contribute to your defence. The trick is to find the strengths of your force and place them where they can be of the most use. Usually, as the defender, going at the enemy toe to toe, strength against strength is not the path to victory. You may well score devastating blows on your enemies forces, but usually the devastation will have spread to your forces as well. With the differences in attacking and defending forces costs, you will often come out on the losing end as the attacker possesses more resources and can trade blow for blow and still win the battle. We must find a way to even the score up somewhat before the battle begins.
A good way to start is by quickly determining what units the enemy has brought to the battle. Usually the attacking player has a fair bit of ground to cover before he can threaten your defences, use this time to hold off exposing your positions by shooting at extreme ranges and make careful note as to what types and numbers of men and equipment is moving your way. Assess the enemy's strengths and expose his weaknesses by attacking his weakest units with your strongest. Avoid fighting outnumbered or outgunned, it is you that must always outnumber and outgun the enemy. Doing so should cost the enemy more then it does you, and if this can be repeated over and over again, victory will be yours.
Every battle is a balance between ends and means, you can have a great plan to achieve a certain end, but unless you have the means to accomplish it, the plan is totally worthless.

“Every limitation has its value, but a limitation that requires persistent effort entails a cost of too much energy. When, however, the limitation is a natural one (as for example, the limitation by which water flows only downhill), it necessarily leads to success, for then it means a saving of energy. The energy that otherwise would be consumed in a vain struggle with the object is applied wholly to the benefit to the matter in hand, and success is assured.”

The I Ching
China, circa eighth century B.C.

We must avoid coming up with a plan on paper, and instead look deeply into what tools you have. These tools consist of the units you have, weather, terrain, number of game turns, ect. Think of the skills that you have, the quality of your troops, the knowledge of your opponent from past battles, how creatively you can use all your means at your disposal. Then, out of this let your plans form.
“Perfect economy” means finding a golden balance, where your blows count but do not wear you out. Over economizing will wear you out more as you will never be able to deliver the knock out punch. CM is like any sport, you must not let the other player/team stay in the game, giving them hope that allows them to carry on with the battle. This way they always think that they are just one move away from changing the battle in their favour. If they are allowed to proceed this way, they often will find a way to accomplish their goals. We must put them out of the game as soon as we get the chance to. Hit them hard so that their force is unable to continue, or that the enemy is convinced that they have no chances here on this part of the map.
There are three ways to help us economize during a battle and yet still deliver the big blows that will get the win. First, deception. Most often, attacking players are ready to meet a static defence, what happens when they see a force moving around? Are you coming at them, should they hold off for a few turns to gather more information about your intentions? Should they divert some of their attacking forces in order to deal with what they perceive to be a threat? The questions and actions are unlimited. Even if no shots are fired by either side, you can usually shed a couple turns off the game's length while they reorganize, and in this way add a cost to the enemy in reduced available turns. You might be able to take part of the enemy force out of the action entirely and never fire a shot as he will have to provide flank protection for his units against a perceived threat. If a unit does not fire or take part in a battle it is as good as dead.
Second, look for opponents that you can beat. Don't fight fair, outnumber and outgun the enemy forces. If you question the effects that this can have, start the editor and place one squad from each side in scattered trees at 100m apart and let them go head to head for several turns and count the losses. Then add a field gun to one side and run the same number of turns, again check the losses for each side. Add another squad to this side, maybe a light mortar and so on each time recording the losses by both sides. You will find that the enemy losses go up exponentially and yours will decrease. You will also notice that the time it takes to start causing significant losses to the enemy will decrease as well. This is another economizing tactic in that you save ammunition and of course casualties not taken are a direct saving.
Third, we have to know when to stop. Pyrrhus did not know when to stop, we must avoid doing the same. I think players, including myself like to use hit and run tactics often, the problem is we forget the run part. Our hidden units bloody the enemy, we stay in position, forgetting or choosing not to run, the next thing we know, the attacker has adjusted to the threat and brings forces quickly to the area, decimates what units we have there and moves on. We turn a victory in this part of the map into a loss by figuring that we can soldier on, when we should have gotten our guys the heck outta there and taken up new positions that the attacker must again locate and deal with.
I said that I would try to mention players here that I have faced that are good examples of what I am writing about. I know that there are several out there that are good at this, but one that comes to mind is herroburst. My battles with him have been very entertaining, I should play him more often. He seems to have the ability to put together small battle-groups that compliment each other to the fullest. His forces are just the right blend to have just enough to push through defences and hold off a stiff counterattack. Tanks are supported by infantry, infantry protect the tanks and fringe units are used to their maximum effectiveness. I would say that this is what perfect economy looks like, nothing is wasted and everything is used to it's best effects. Considering that he usually has about a thousand games on the go at any one time, this is quite a skill, I would hate to be his opponents if he ever decided to play just two or three games at a time.
I think this starts to cover the “perfect economy” strategy in CM, when I get around to it again, I will present the next strategy, “The Counterattack”. I again look forward to what everyone has to say, I am trying to keep the length down and just hit some of the high points on each of the topics, volumes could be written.

[JasonC]

Firing at long range to delay the enemy, let alone this snippet of advice "it is you that must always outnumber and outgun the enemy. Doing so should cost the enemy more then it does you, and if this can be repeated over and over again" - don't work as economy in CM battles.

Every unit you have will spend itself in fighting. Actual wipe out of a unit is rarely the way a unit is spent, or it is just one of the ways. You can't afford to gang up 3 or 4 to 1 on an enemy subunit, clobber it, and repeat indefinitely, for the simple reason that you will run out of ammo long before the enemy runs out of forces, fighting that way.

A unit is spent if it is destroyed. Infantry is spent if its morale is shattered so badly they won't rally within the scope of the scenario. Guns can become spent simply by revealing themselves, either because the enemy then avoids their covered arc or because he brings up an asymmetric counter like on map mortars or an FO, or area fire from just out of LOS by an AFV with large HE. Units can become spent simply by being out of position for the rest of the fight, including e.g. by winning on their own axis but not having good terrain or enough time to redeploy to another. Units can be spent by being required to hold a flag or exit for VPs. But by far the most common way a unit gets spent in CM, besides direct knock outs, is simply running out of ammo.

FOs run out in 4 minutes. On map mortars run out in 4-5 minutes, only the light Russian 50s lasting longer. Guns typically don't survive more than a few minutes after opening up, but if they do, most will run out of the relevant category of ammo in about 5 minutes, and some will in 3. Squads typically have enough ammo for 7 or 8 minutes, which is typically enough for 2 heavy firefights with similar numbers of enemies. Infantry AT may have 2 minutes of fire if they live that long; usually they need stealth to get within range of anything and thus expend themselves by being spotted. HMGs are longer lived if they shoot at range, but still will run low or dry in 10 to 15 minutes. They have plenty of ammo for close in fighting and will pin or die before they run out if they fire within range of enemy spots, but if they fire at long range to delay the enemy, they can keep that up for maybe 10 minutes, if they want anything left for closer range firing.

OK, so within those limitations, what units and match ups are capable of more than even exchanges? Everything used right can generally mess up its opposite number while burning through its ammo - and that may help victory with knock out points or by contributing to the overall plan. But a force that spends all its ammo and lives, while wiping out its own number on the other side, has not advance the ratio of live and capable forces in your favor. You are ammo neutralized and the enemy is dead neutralized, but it is still an even trade. There are only a few categories of weapons and match up that can exceed this trade off performance.

Infantry fire at very close range against morale broken enemies, can rack up kills far higher than they own losses. But it has to be very close - inside 50 meters typically. At 100 meters into open ground while you are in cover, perhaps. That is about the *only* situation in which squad infantry inflicts greater losses on the enemy than it neutralizes on your own side, by running out of ammo.

Thick front AFVs can run through multiples of their own cost in dead enemy AFVs. Thin front ones generally don't - they win or lose coin tosses and you might get lucky and string together 3 "heads" in a row, but that is about it. Many on fews from thin front but well armed AFVs can approximate the effect of a thick front AFV.

The cheaper towed guns can trade for AFVs worth several times their own cost, but generally the ones that miss or are out of position about make up for it.

Full tanks with high ammo for coaxial and hull MGs can mess up large amounts of enemy infantry if they catch it in the open, and can dominate it even in cover if you have enough of it - like full platoons. They won't kill whole companies but they can break them. This depends on the enemy heavy AT network being completely smashed and the armor war being completely won.

Very high caliber HE weapons with direct fire, can mess up several times their own cost in enemy infantry, before running dry. The category here is "HE chuckers", usually AFVs and occasionally towed guns (like the German sIG). Again it relies on first having won the armor war, at least locally, to allow your HE chucker vehicles to focus exclusively on enemy infantry.

Overmodeled strafing AC can sometimes kill more than its (high) cost, if they have a "target rich environment" of enemy AFVs without thick sides, and there is no enemy AA present.

That is really about it. Everything else is in a tool kit of even trades or counters to specific enemy threats, and works - if it works - by "drawing trump" to set up those sorts of match ups later on.

Boneheaded enemy play is the only other major force multiplier beyond even trades, available, and you can't force it by your own actions. Examples are outstacking under TRP artillery, driving expensive AFVs recklessly, handing you lots of infantry in the open, moving heavy weapons prematurely instead of using them to fire, poor fire discipline throwing away all their ammo too soon at hard to hurt targets, or significant parts of the enemy force just misdeployed so badly they might as well be on the moon.

To me, a sensible attrition-economy approach starts with avoiding such boneheaded play yourself, and then is mostly about avoiding giving the enemy the few lopsided kill chances described above. Don't duel thick fronted armor frontally. Don't take on a tank platoon in a tight fist with one tank. Have a heavy AT net and skulk back into it with your infantry, to avoid giving him armor vs. infantry shooting galleries. Don't blast away with infantry at range and into cover - it is a waste of ammo and of your stealth. Notice these are practically all "don'ts", not "do's".

Above all, stop trying to shoot more by shooting sooner and realize you won't shoot any more often that way (because the ammo will run out either way), but will shoot less hard (farther, into better cover, at the wrong sort of targets, etc). Wait for the good shots, in other words. Then try for even exchanges at the right enemy targets and punish any outright boners your opponent pulls.

To me, that is economy of force. And it won't on its own win anything for you. It will only prevent preventable mistakes and get you an even chance. If the enemy screws it up, you may get an edge out of it. That's it. Dial down the ambition and dial up the professionalism. Settle for solid, sound play.

One man's opinion...

[Ratzki]

Firing at long range to delay the enemy, let alone this snippet of advice "it is you that must always outnumber and outgun the enemy. Doing so should cost the enemy more then it does you, and if this can be repeated over and over again" - don't work as economy in CM battles.
...
Boneheaded enemy play is the only other major force multiplier beyond even trades, available, and you can't force it by your own actions.
...
Dial down the ambition and dial up the professionalism. Settle for solid, sound play.

One man's opinion...

I will start with this little statement here as time is tight right now. I do not think that I told anyone to fire off weapons at ranges that render them ineffective in order to delay enemy movement. I am assuming that players out there are smart enough to know that infantry firing outside of their effective ranges and into great cover is a waste of ammunition, and reveals your positions to the advancing enemy. But there are times and opportunities to lay down some effective fire on enemy units, then scoot out of LOS and into new positions that are out of the LOS of the enemy. Now, not all maps afford this tactic to you every time, but there are times when this can and is used. If you choose not to use it when the situation presents itself, go right ahead, I pray that more of my opponents do so, I love dealing with a static defence. I say however; you are missing out on a chance to improve the odds of you comming out on top in the battle. To start off by brushing aside any tactic that may gain you an advantage might be your first bonehead play, and does not sound like one dialing up the professionalism.
As far as the snippet to outnumber and outgun is concerned. why this can't be done on a local level within the boundaries of a CM map might need to be explained to me. If you can use the tactic in a game of checkers, I am sure that you are quite capable of doing so in CM. Plus, I am just the messenger here, I think this is an "Art of War" startement, you might want to take it up with the guy that wrote the book. I believe that they have been teaching this for several years now, maybe you need to pen a new volume.
And lastly, to say that you cannot force the enemy to make a boneheaded play is absurd. It is called initiative. Sports teams do it all the time, make the other team play your game, not the other way around. Debates are won and lost with initiative, not just superior facts. CM is no different, it is a game just like football, hockey, checkers and others. If a person is forced to react all the time, he is at a great disadvantage.
When I have more time I will read your statements more closely, would be interested in knowing what others think of the ideas presented.

[JasonC]

Shooting and then disengaging is useful if you permanently kill something, which in CM generally means against a lone enemy vehicle that stays dead once hit. Against infantry, it can matter for delay or misdirection, at best. Otherwise you just spend ammo and he rallies and he's ahead on the deal. If you engage infantry, you want to finish it, not tickle them. The rally power of infantry is its greatest strength and can absorb nearly endless amounts of ammo without any serious or lasting lost, if only the bits of firing at spread out enough, over time and units.

And yes I can tell you are quoting a precept when you say fight many to one and then do it over and over. I can tell you aren't reporting what works in CM because it doesn't. Infantry has maybe 2 such fights in sequence before it is ammo blown, even if it took no hits itself, which typically doesn't happen. The one thing infantry is good at lopsidedly (besides sucking up enemy ammo) is wading it to point blank against men already cowering, to finish them off permanently before they can recover. But even that they can pull off only a couple of times before their ammo counters run down to zero. Your checkers piece doesn't have an ammo counter, does it?

And no, you can't make anybody make boneheaded mistakes by telling yourself you are in charge and have "initiative". You can initiative your tanks right into his kill sack or initiative your infantry right across the clever dead ground route he set as a trap before you hit "go", that's about it. He can screw up if he wants to, but you can't make him. And professionalism is all about avoiding the clearly avoidable mistakes that lopsided results almost always turn on.

Smart attrition fighting is not a brilliancy razzle dazzle in which you can ensure you are better than an opponent. It is a competency test, and if you pass and he passes, the fight will turn on other matters. If either of you fails and the other doesn't and exploits the difference competently, that's it, game over, nothing else will matter.

[Weasel]

Interesting stuff, a lot of the bad things you guys are stating here are occurring in my games against Splork. My grunts have opened up as soon as they spotted the enemy which was about 300m range. Now on today's battlefield 300m is effective rifle fire range, but I guess in WW2 not so much? I have lost 2 AT guns with no return either.

All in all these CM articles are great stuff for us green players.

[Ratzki]

I agree with alot of what you are saying, but then again there are a couple points. I agree, you can't just "tickle " enemy infantry, you have to hit them hard, and try to be set up so that you can do this in one turn. Then you have to get out of the way, now, did I say now, I mean now. First reason for getting out is that the enemy will move something that he thinks will turn the tide in his favour into position to deal with the threat, and it will be done fast. You really want to avoid fighting the enemy, now I say shoot at them, and shoot at them as fast and with as much as you have in the local area that can have a good effect on the bad guys. Just do not let the enemy return fire and have a fight start; it is very hard to dissengage successfully. Your men will pin, response times for following orders go through the roof. Soon you will be in trouble. Now you do not have to move far away, just make the enemy have to locate you again, and try to keep the enemy heavy weapons out of LOS and the fight.
On the subject of making mistakes, I agree that you can not make someone make an error, but you can sure up the odds that he will do so. It is the ability to keep the initiative that will help you force out the mistakes. If you can keep the pressure on the enemy units and keep him reacting to your actions, he will be hard pressed not to over/under react somewhere, even a hesitation can be deadly. Now I am not saying this is an easy task. I struggle with it all the time. But defending is an active task not a passive one. I would rather attack in CM any day to defending in a battle, but I have had success and see to be doing better as time goes on and I start trying to force the attackers into certain actions. This is really all you have. If you sit, you die, simple as that.
I too don't go in for razzle dazzle, and if you play against one of our better players here, you will be in for one he!! of a fight no matter what. But that does not mean just sit back and let be what will be. I keep going back to the sports thing but when I was playing good hockey in my teens, my coach had played in the NHL for a few years in his past. I was chatting with him one day and what he said has stayed with me all this time. He said that there are all kinds of good players, but what seperates the good from the great is that "Great players do what should be done when it should be done, not when it has to be done, because by then it is too late." This is not razzle dazzle but playing the game, will you always be successful?... nope, but no action is worse then the wrong action. I think that you should play the game, and by that I mean that you should take an active part in the battle, just remember that sometimes sh!t happens.

[JasonC]

Straw man. Nobody is talking about feet in cement sitting there doing nothing.

Starting infantry fights that you don't mean to turn into fights and finish is a waste of time. If you get caught trying to pull it, you lose a platoon sized ambush force for nothing. If you succeed, you messed up one squad for 3 minutes and they just rally. And you spent a minute of ammo from a full platoon to do it. That will never compound to victory.

The only time ambush and fall back like that makes any sense is when it is merely whacking one very weak scout, like a half squad, that is way in front of support and therefore vulnerable. And the gain from it isn't attrition, because there isn't any - your ammo loss is as big a deal as his manpower loss. It just denies enemy intel for a little bit.

Which is tactical minutae and not how to win the CM war of attrition.

Again, the only way to inflict lopsided causalties in meaningful amounts are the match ups I detailed. Infantry in full position strength firing at point blank against already cowering men, or men in the open at 100 yards while you are in cover - and kept up enough to actually smash to heck the enemy formation. Which in practice means about 4 minutes and half the ammo "wind" of the guys doing it. For infantry, that's it. For AT, lopsided kills come down to enemy blunders, a thicker front plate, platoon vs. lone vehicle, or hidden AT gun ambush (including infantry AT teams at very close range). That's it.

These aren't maneuver-ee affairs. They are simply "right match up" affairs, in the combined arms sense. And most turn on a full position cutting loose - kill sack stuff, not plink and run...

[kineas]

Excellent post, JasonC.

I might add that ammunition levels in CM are on the pessimistic side of the historical values, making ammo management a central theme.

One other thing: CM has a definitely 'soft' CRT when considering infantry targets. Which means that shots usually just suppress the enemy, only routed squads suffer significant casualties. Therefore if you start firing at a unit, you must capitalize on the suppression effect. You have to rout the squad, or delay them in a way which contributes to your strategy. Otherwise they will rally in 2 minutes, and you just wasted ammunition.

The best way to capitalize on suppression effects is to break the tie in infantry (close range) firefights. When two platoons are fighting eachother even one 50mm mortar can be deadly, because it makes the fight lopsided quickly.

Since the CRT is soft and ammo is low this means that 'suppression-management' is also a central part of the game economics.

Take, for example Steel Panthers. The CRT is deadlier (to the effect that pros tone it down for better simulation) and ammo is plentiful. (15-20 turns for an infantry squad). In that game you shoot whenever you see a target. /Disclaimer: I'm not a SP pro/

[JasonC]

Yes, CM is much harder on the ammo count than many other games, and undoubtly harder on them than reality, either. It does have the overall lethality about right and the emphasis on suppression rather than outright kills. Most games make the opposite mistake and let you fire as often at you want even at marginal targets, and make it easy to rack up permanent kills and wipe forces out to a man. If those things were accurate the war would have taken about 2 months and ended in complete slaughter of the losing side right on the field.

The errors in realism in CM are basically twofold - ammo vs. cover effects and rally speed. CM has it right that if infantry or even a well stocked MG team just blazes away continually, it would run dry in a matter of minutes. They therefore did not blaze away continually, however, and in fact fired far less often than we see our units doing in CM. I mean, American infantry expected a basic load of at most 90 rounds of rifle ammo to last a rifleman *a week* in combat. Maybe two per week in the heaviest fighting, of the push to St Lo or Hurtgen variety. In CM, we fire off that load in 10 minutes and think nothing of it.

Why were they shooting less? Because they saw actual targets much less often. In CM, cover gives an exposure percentage, then you fire at them full blazes anyway, and the exposure percentage "catches" some of the fire and keeps it from hurting the target. That can happen sometimes but it isn't the usual way cover works. Instead, the shooter just can't see anyone exposed and doesn't pull a trigger. He doesn't want to reveal his own position without a chance to really hurt the enemy, so he holds his fire. In short, cover makes the potential shooters fire less, not fire just as much but hit less.

In hits per unit time those are the same, but in ammo expenditure they aren't. They therefore also aren't the same in total achievable hits before running out of ammo.

I suggested to the CM designers a partial solution, to make a unit-shot only expend ammo on a "roll" of the square root of the exposure of the target - so a shot at a unit with 30% cover would only use up an ammo point half the time, a shot at a unit in really good cover only about a quarter of the time. There would still be a benefit in total achievablle hits from cover that way, but the cover effect would be "split" about half way between shots taken but "intercepted", and shots just not taken in the first place. Shouldn't have been hard to implement, but they didn't act on the suggestion.

The second thing CM gets somewhat wrong is the speed of rally from infantry fire - at least at the typical levels of unit quality and command bonuses you usually see. Arguably the green units without morale bonus leaders are about right - if anything even those are a bit too resilient to light fire.

The way it works in CM, only the really deep "red" morale levels are hard to recover from quickly. The others matter because they stop movement and because they reduce outgoing reply fire - which is important and lets CM get the tendency of firefights to "snowball" one way or the other, correct. That is why your point about suppression turning that balance is spot on - it is the key thing in even infantry match ups. But for lopsided shooting in other situations, the medium suppression is just way too easy to shrug off.

Good *CM* infantry tactics exploit this. "Rally power" I call it. If enemy firepower can be spread over a whole company worth of units, and all of them only push hard enough to hit yellow morale states, and pause if they are that suppressed, then they just recover and recover and "eat" the incoming ammo. They slow, but don't stop, and don't die, and don't break. If the enemy could then wade into them at point blank it might finish them off - but if they are far enough away and covered by your own support weapons, there is no danger of that. And the enemy will run out of bullets to throw at them before they run out of courage.

Scenario designers can address the second by erring on the lower quality side, instead of putting veterans with +2 morale bonuses everywhere. The lower quality troops can be more frustrating for newer players to command - one reason CM probably toned it down. CMBO was way easier still, brokenly-so, so CMBB was definitely a step in the right direction and the best yet. And CMBB prompted complaints that attacking was impossible and MGs too powerful. Untrue with proper tactics, but it explains why the designers didn't push further in that direction.

At any rate, the realism issues of CM are a separate question from how to implement economy of force within the game as it stands. In the game we have, ammo expenditure management is absolutely critical to CM tactics.