Q: How much micromanagement is necessary in CMANO?
A: The answer is, not a lot, though you might find it beneficial in certain situations. There is a lot of detail available in case you want to get into it, but CMANO knows that you can't be expected to micromanage everything and it's not a good idea to anyway - so at the heart of controlling most larger-scale CMANO scenarios are two main things: (1) the mission editor; and (2) the doctrine/EMCON/WRA editor. For the most part, you're basically setting up areas of activity/target lists, units that will be assigned to those areas/target lists, and the way they'll behave. They can then behave autonomously. In fact, at least in theory, you can actually play (and win) entire scenarios by setting up orders at the start and never touching the controls again, though usually that's not a great idea and you will want to react to new intelligence etc.
Here's what the mission screen looks like for a CAP type mission for example:
Note that while there's lots of things you can optionally specify (e.g. minimum number of aircraft on station, altitudes/throttles, refueling options), you don't even have to do that. The mission will be executed with default settings and very little player input. On average, it takes only about a dozen clicks to set up a typical mission in CMANO, which can have as many units assigned to it as needed and will function indefinitely. Compare that to what you can usually accomplish with a dozen clicks in a micromanage-y RTS title!
The real trick, though, is figuring out how your units are doing and how you can make them do better - and that's where the devil is in the details and it's great having all those options! But you don't need to worry about them constantly - only when something becomes a real issue. And it's in those details that CMANO shines, not because you HAVE to deal with them all the time, but because there are many times you will WANT to deal with them - and the game gives you lots of options for doing so.
The other important screen in CMANO is the doctrine menu:
Basically you always have a doctrine set as a kind of SOP for the entire side (i.e. all units under your control) and all units will typically follow it unless there is a different specific rule set further down the hierarchy of command. The hierarchy basically goes side => mission => group => individual unit. For example, the general rule for the side might be to not use gun for A/G strafing, but when setting up a CAS mission for example, you can specifically set the mission doctrine to enable A/G strafing - so that your SOP is that units do not use guns on ground targets, unless they are assigned to that CAS mission in which case they're cleared to do so. Or, you can select a specific flight of A-10s or an individual aircraft and override that setting just for them individually.
In theory, yes, you can micromanage the game to a level where you fly an A-10 to the right altitude and range to start shooting, then manually order it to release x number of rounds on target - but there's no reason for you to do that. Usually, all you have to do is to assign it to a mission with either a patrol area or a target set - and it'll use the doctrine settings to find, identify and engage targets within parameters. Doesn't matter if it's one aircraft or a hundred aircraft, either - as long as they have a mission where the doctrine doesn't put them in a bad situation, they can manage perfectly well themselves!
And the final main screen is the WRA - Weapons Release Authorization, which is basically SOP for weapons release:
Basically it works the same way - it's set and can be changed for the entire force, but you can also change the WRA for every mission, group, or individual unit if you want to. Again, useful for tweaking different roles for your units.
Strike missions also allow you to set two different sets of doctrines - one for the strike aircraft, and one for the escorts. So you can force your strike aircraft to fly radar-off, avoid detection, and never engage hostile aircraft or air defences and focus on the mission, while the escorts can go in with guns (and radars) blazing.
To sum up, I should say one thing:
There isn't necessarily a lot of micromanagement, but there is a lot of detail and information the game will bombard you with, and it can be a bit overwhelming. The nice thing is that you don't have to deal with all of it all the time, and pretty much everything has a reasonable default setting (which can even be extremely reasonable if the scenario creator carefully set it up to reflect realistic procedures for a given conflict - or extremely unreasonable if the scenario creator purposely wants to throw you off with a hidden doctrine flaw). As long as units have patrol areas/targets and loadouts with the right weapons, they don't need to be told what to do and will take care of themselves pretty well.
But it helps a LOT if you understand the details of what's going on, because when it matters most is when things go wrong. When something isn't going right, you often do have to go find that one tiny thing hidden somewhere in the doctrine that's not making it the way it's supposed to. Whether it's aircraft dropping 16 JDAMs on a target that only actually requires 1 to destroy it, or whether it's ships that decide to light up, reveal their position, and fire off half their SAMs at a passing enemy cruise missile that doesn't present any threat to them. Or whether it's downright suicidal behaviour by certain units because the doctrine allows them to make multiple passes against the same targets and they take full advantage of that, common sense be damned.
It's always some little thing! And it can be a bit frustrating to diagnose and correct that one little thing, unless you can pin down exactly where the units get those bad ideas from.
So there's not a lot of clickwork or giving units really basic orders, but you do have to learn a lot about the fine details of the game and its underlying logic - whether you like it or not. Which is why I think it's good to always start with small scenarios and learn one thing at a time with CMANO - if there's a wargame/sim out there that can overwhelm with volumes of detail, it's definitely got that!
