What is the best way... Had recon parked outside but wasn't picking up the infantry... I tried mortars and artillery but it was hard to find the enemy. Sent in some infantry but they got slaughtered... Do air recon see better in cities?

Same question kinda applies to towns as well..

Much like in real life, to take a town you want a force that's a good 3x larger than the defenders. Park couple tanks at about 1500m (assuming no ATGM's) from the town and send in several squads of shock infantry (i.e. infantry with HE2 or HE3 on their weapons, and that are in 10-man squads).

For NATO, the Legionnaires are good for this.

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You can get a corrected shot on the center of the town if a recon unit is looking down one of the main streets.

It depends on the situation. If the town is heavily defended with anti-infantry and anti-tank infantry in buildings then it is possible that your only option would be to send anti-infantry infantry into the town immediately after artillery bombardment. You want to get into the buildings as fast as possible, contact with infantry in heavy cover while your guys are in the open is going to get your men killed. The outskirts of towns can be watched over by tanks as they can fire on infantry in the perimeter buildings while your infantry push through and remember to get a flame tank to cook the hard points and generally support where they can. While all this is going on you will need to keep resupplying your infantry that are in contact with the enemy and, if the town is large, take one set of buildings at a time, pausing to reinforce your infantry. The key to taking a town is stunning weapons, solid infantry, a well supported push and no counter attack against your clearing force. That will probably mean that the town will need to be surrounded to stop any reinforcing efforts or efforts to hit your assaulting force before/while they enter the town.

The one thing to remember about towns is that if they are important I would have preferred to have taken the town first (thinking of towns of Duel Fields importance) because, unless you surround it and better the outlying forces, you aren't going to take it. I do see, time and time again players trying to take a well defended town with infantry and artillery, only to splash their points/resources against an immovable obstacle when they should be looking to hit their opponent's weaker flanks where, in all likelihood, they won't run into a massive stack of well dug-in infantry.

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IMO, the only safe way to attack a town is fast moving Inf rushing it after a bombardment from as big guns as you can get. Flamers work well too, try and have them in support. Always dismount the Inf from their transports before you enter the town.
Best units for town clearing are:

Spetznaz + Sapery

Legion FAMAS + Sapeur

(insert optional flame tanks here)

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More Challengers will solve any issue.

Mi-17s or Hogs forcefiring at infantry positions are great as well. Disembark infantry at the outskirts and combat scout with empty SKOTS/VABS to reveal enemy positions.

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The best way really is not to assault towns. 90% of the time when people are taking towns it is completely not necessary. Command vehicles are very rarely in towns, and if they are, can be destroyed by arty easily.

You have to remember that anything can come out of a forest, while vehicles cannot hide in towns very well. Keeping an eye on forests is crucial, towns are just deathtraps for the enemy army or no-go zones for your army.

I mostly destroy the defenders set up around the town, then drive around it. No need to have high losses or at least your forces tied up there for infantry worth 50-100 points.

But, if you really have to, carefully approach from several sides (single units, empty carriers, etc.) and see if they have a blind spot somewhere. Most town defenses have, and that's where your infantry and flame tanks move in. If the town does not have a blind spot, it is so full of infantry that you can arty it for good effect.

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In urban environment the ratio needs to be 9 to 1. In forest it is 3 to 1.
The difference is that in forest fights are only horizontal and ranges are short (depending terrain, but usually only 25-50 meter for infantry fighting) but in urban environment, combat happens in all axis, you can make attack from low (cellars) or from up (roofs) and single position can give defender a 270 degree view. One squad can hold a building and fight in all four sides same time.

When defender is in forest and has recon and attacker comes from open field but does not have recon, the situation is then realistic 3 to 1.

Example 4 IFV + 4 Jäger defending forest and there is assault where attacker has 3 MBT, 12 IFV, 12 Squads (motostrelki) and artillery support. Defender can cause over 90% losses to attacker while defender losses are 100%. But at that point, when attacker only has 2½ IFV left, they lost the fight because they can not defend the location anymore against re-attack from defender reinforcements or they can not continue fighting. That is the rule that 20% losses are acceptable so your units can continue fighting, either taking defensive positions or continue assault. If you lose more than 20%, the units can not anymore work as doctrine says and everything becomes much slower, weaker so enemy can take you down right after. And if defender does it well, they retreat from locations at specific point to secondary defensive location and attacker needs to attack again, this time much smaller firepower meaning the ratio is more to 2 to 1 or less than 3 to 1. And at that point, defender has no problems to wipe attacker from earth.

In urban combat the attacker is so underpowered and needs to come in much greater amount of firepower to flush defenders out. If there is just one squad, you really need a 2 MBT, 4-5 IFV and infantry platoon and possible mortar support.

Of course, other way what you can do is that you actually level down the whole area with artillery so there isn't a rock what has not turn over. But that is just terrible strategy because you end up in situation where civilians attack toward you.

The game recon system and cover system does not work as it suppose to work. Defender does not have luxury for correct cover or hiding. Attacker recon can too easily see in forests (even to towns).

With just 2-3 squads it is too easy to destroy 5-6 infantry from towns just by going carefully house by house and retreating littlebit before contact. It takes little more time but 1 to 2 ratio where attacker has less says game system does not work well.
Now if I play Pact I simply just order one or two rocket strikes to town and that's it. Like there would not been any kind cover at all.

I use flamethrowers. They can clean houses and street without being hit by enemy infantry.

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Hitler's reaction on Ultimate patch

Oh my, this makes it seem impossible. I was doing either the third or fourth campaign mission... It's been going for 2 hours... I need to get better... The mission before where you get a bonus if you complete it in 20m, took me an hour... I guess I'm just slow at using combined arms... I find it difficult to move my units and keep them at the proper spacing, etc... fast.