Unsupported tanks behind enemy lines

[Cross]

Originally Posted by Lt. Ketch

What organization do you normaly have when you hit the rear area? For example, your set up your forces: recon up front, tanks and infantry main body, mobile reserve in rearish area of main body and then just press forward maintaining the spacing between the recon and body.
Or, after you hit the enemy do you fold around his flanks and penitrate his line at weak spots letting the units that penitrate in force ravage the rear? Let me put it another way, do you advance like a bulldozer or like water?

The reason I ask is because I'm curious how you keep from losing too many units to the rear forces. As I've related, I'm always losing the units that penitrate the line. I understand that good recon can help with this, but how do you set it up? A basic thought for me is to regroup my forces after sending the enemy packing and reestablish the scouts (which ever ones are left) and basicly begin another advance against the rear units. Any thoughts or personal experiences?

Usually, I find the bulldozer works better when attacking. It's easier to defend them attack, so a half competent opponent can make you pay a high price (too high) as you steadily advance across the board.

Most military colleges will probably tell you that you need a three to one advantage to prosecute a successful attack (rule of thumb).

In the world of wargames, three infantry sections 'always' beat one infantry section. That doesn't mean I lose one of my three and he loses his one; but the three overwhelm the one, and the three take minimal casualties.

SP battles are often fought against equal forces, so to shift the odds in your favour you must plan an attack in a specific geographic area (choose an area that gives you the advantage); and bring your combined arms forces to bear in this place.

The beauty of SP is that your opponent can't see your build up. Hold off the attack until enough units are in place to suddenly apply overwhelming force.

Don't bunch your forces up and let enemy artillery turn your brilliant planning into a disaster; but place your forces close enough to one another where they give mutual fire support.

Remember 3:1, you want three of your units firing at one of his, or rather your opponent's unit has to try and fire at three different targets. This will actually give you a much better than 3 to 1 chance of success.

I don't actually try to have a 3:1 advantage, but I do try to overwhelm a weaker defense with superior fire power. The better the odds, the better the odds.

I'll attach a SP tactics doc I wrote a while ago. It's called 'Top Ten PBEM Mistakes'; and is geared towards human opponents, but much applies to AI battles.


cheers,
Cross

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by Lt. Ketch

Thank you all! I've known that there has been a lot that I needed to learn about strategy and tactics and this helps put me on a good track. There is much that I don't think of and miss (as is evedent in this thread, I'm sure), so thank you again. I'd love to keep this discussion going.

Additional thoughts:

I like the mortar idea and have used it before which is one reason why I don't use it much anymore. I imobilized one of my own tanks with a mortar shell. It probablly didn't help that it was a 100mm mortar. I studied in the school that when it comes to artillary, the bigger the better. However, I've identified the uses and needs for smaller caliber ART. What is a good size for mortaring your own tanks?

I also agree about the infantry, but have found that unsupported infantry get chewed up by ART and AFV in the open. I'm trying to work on my combined arms as I tend to swing to extremes.

I think one of my problems (in addition to the ones previously mentioned) is that I make "anihilating every last man" one of my objectives. I'll work on that. Thanks for the reminder.

Not a bad idea. What organization do you normaly have when you hit the rear area? For example, your set up your forces: recon up front, tanks and infantry main body, mobile reserve in rearish area of main body and then just press forward maintaining the spacing between the recon and body.
Or, after you hit the enemy do you fold around his flanks and penitrate his line at weak spots letting the units that penitrate in force ravage the rear? Let me put it another way, do you advance like a bulldozer or like water?

The reason I ask is because I'm curious how you keep from losing too many units to the rear forces. As I've related, I'm always losing the units that penitrate the line. I understand that good recon can help with this, but how do you set it up? A basic thought for me is to regroup my forces after sending the enemy packing and reestablish the scouts (which ever ones are left) and basicly begin another advance against the rear units. Any thoughts or personal experiences?

(Crap this has gotten long! Sorry about that. Kudos if you make it down this far.)

1) for danger close on armour only forces then I would go for 60mm (if you have the range) or 81mm mortars. Or 76mm arty and field guns, or infantry guns - your 75mm IG might have more reach than your 8cm mortar.

- the idea is NOT to drop on your boys, bar strays, but to pound the box you intend to go through next turn, then move the belt of fire and repeat. You may want an armoured OP vehicle with the force to shift arty further by having LOS to the pounded ground, as LOS to the impact zone is now critical, otherwise you will only get a shift of a hex or so without unacceptable delays (or will need more arty and accept that those on a long shift will get > 1.0 delay, and have to plan ahead more).

2)A pure tank penetration is likely to run into problems without grunts having eyes on the ground.

- best to have a platoon of APC with the tank coy, following behind (e.g. with the reserve tank platoon or coy HQ).

- Don't use snipers as drop-off riders, they have nil survival value if hosed off by MG fires and are less value as reactive armour than scout teams. But they can be useful if you leave them behind in overwatch, they have long range weapons and can deal with a discoverd AT gun. But a sniper is only useful when dismounted and unseen - so drop him off in cover behind a contour or building or wood, an let him walk forwards next turn before moving the armour and let him have a look-see first.

- If you intend to use small rider teams then use 3-4 man scout teams or inf-AT teams. Minimum size 2, but 3-4 better and size 0. At least 2 elements per tank platoon.

Small teams cost less MP to drop off and pick up. So drop some off each end-turn and see what happens. maybe they will draw fires, well that is information. Next turn, pick them up and trundle off. Do not worry if some are in retreat mode and cannot be rallied. Be prepared to leave passenger scout rider teams behind, to follow the advance on foot if they have to e.g once rallied. They may see things like flank attacks behind you.

I happily drop off non-command scout or AT teams behind a pure tank advance like a little trail of breadcrumbs !.

Actually the breadcrumb trail of little scout OP teams left behind a mobile advance as security elements is a rather good idea, since it gives you an over-watched corridor that you can then use to retreat back through or send reinforcements down.

I like the UK carrier section as a drop-off behind an advancing force - they can take over a hill, village or small wood and put 3 scout/inf-at teams on the edges looking out and the carriers can wait in cover or move to give MG support or pick ups as required. often I will do this a turn or 3 before the advancing tank company is due to go through the area. By then the carrier section has either cleared the box, or bumped into things. Unless you stupidly deploy all out in the open and buck nekkid to enemy fires then a contact on a carrier section will usually only lose an element or 2 rather than the entire section, and they are cheap anyway. No worries, there will be a second carrier scout section with the tanks - the 2 carrier sections should be leapfrogging through each other. 2 leapfrogging carrier scout sections and one supporting pair of armoured cars (Daimlers say) preparing the corridor of advance for a tank coy is a good idea.

Andy

[RERomine]

Originally Posted by Lt. Ketch

Not a bad idea. What organization do you normaly have when you hit the rear area? For example, your set up your forces: recon up front, tanks and infantry main body, mobile reserve in rearish area of main body and then just press forward maintaining the spacing between the recon and body.
Or, after you hit the enemy do you fold around his flanks and penitrate his line at weak spots letting the units that penitrate in force ravage the rear? Let me put it another way, do you advance like a bulldozer or like water?

The reason I ask is because I'm curious how you keep from losing too many units to the rear forces. As I've related, I'm always losing the units that penitrate the line. I understand that good recon can help with this, but how do you set it up? A basic thought for me is to regroup my forces after sending the enemy packing and reestablish the scouts (which ever ones are left) and basicly begin another advance against the rear units. Any thoughts or personal experiences?

In an assault, support units (engineers) lead out to breach the obstacles. Initially, the engineers move out alone because they will be delayed at the obstacles and draw artillery. The core moves out attempting to arrive in time to exploit the breach just as it opens, but after enemy artillery has started falling. Once the incoming mail starts, you can alter your advance to avoid the impact zone. People shift artillery, but the AI doesn't seem to do so. This doesn't mean the AI won't have uncommitted artillery to still bring in.

Recon units, followed by armor, half-track mounted infantry, SPAs, SPAAs, etc., breach the gap. It's important to move fast, because the AI will target the lead elements with artillery as soon as they are spotted. The lead elements will be clear of the targetted area, but the rear of the formation could get beat on if the movement is too slow.

My forces attempt to approach the objectives from the flank or rear and close to within 10-20 hexes. One company of infantry will dismount at covered/conceiled locations and advance on the objectives. Targets identified by this infantry will be engaged by the infantry, artillery or my armor as appropriate. One mounted company of infantry is held in reserve.

If the situation is under control, I'll push the reserve on to other objectives with some tanks I peal off from supporting the first company. There will always be casualties, but I tend to keep them away from my armor.

This method isn't always practical. Terrain and time are the determining factors.

[Imp]

Cross read your Top Ten Tips, nice & clear & must say that pretty much covers it.
The message is combined arms & local superiority in numbers punch well above there weight as you have far more options.
It all applies to the AI but you can relax spreading thinly. Use it as a balancing tool if you like getting the job done with what makes it a fun game. It speeds up play as cover more area & if disaster strikes gives good practice for regrouping.

[Cross]

Thanks for the compliment Imp.

I must admit I haven't played much against the AI for several years, and when I do I don't take it too seriously. Having far too much fun PBEM.

Human opponents start to get predictable. I don't mean in boring way, no not at all, but predictable in a fascinating way. It reminds me of what I've often read in WWII books about how experienced troops could often tell what the enemies response was likely to be.

For example: In my current battle I placed an anti-tank gun in a building with a good field of fire towards a likely enemy approach. Sure enough a scout vehicle trundles towards the ATG and gets brewed up with one shot.

Now I'm quite sure my opponent didn't 'spot' my ATG, but I'm also quite sure that he's guessed what building it's in, and I figured his likely response would be an artillery stonk.

So I quickly loaded up the ATG to its nearby carrier and moved it down the road a few hundred yards to set up somewhere else. Sure enough, a couple of turns later and 12cm rounds are falling all over the vacated building.

Am I worried he may read this post? Not really, he may figure it's deliberate mis-information and I'm just trying to get him to prematurely call of his artillery strike.

Love this game.

[Marcello]

In SPWAW I sometimes used a mixture of BT-7s and motorcycle infantry against the AI to raid the enemy rear. A motorcyle platoon would probe the front to see if the area I had chosen for the crossing was not too heavily defended, looking for ATGs in particular. Then if positive I would rush in the tanks and the remaining motorcycles. Once in the rear the motorcycles would look for artillery and such, which the tanks would then blast into oblivion. Tanks would also help the motorcycles against MGs and such they ran into.
Great fun, though probably not cost effective at all.

[m113apc]

For those of that are interested in military tactic and history the "Schwerpunkt" are the way I do it.

Punch a hole in the enemy line and poor through with your units.

[Cross]

Originally Posted by m113apc

For those of that are interested in military tactic and history the "Schwerpunkt" are the way I do it.

Punch a hole in the enemy line and poor through with your units.

From a defensive standpoint, this is where the 'second line of defense' comes in. This was often built around anti-tank guns, which is the problem that the OP is running into.

It sounds like Andy has programmed the AI to use this defense so some extent.

The idea is that your second line of defense will hold up the breakthrough long enough to allow you to bring in reinforcements to contain the problem.

[Imp]

It sounds like Andy has programmed the AI to use this defense so some extent.

Quite a lot actually make the rookie mistake of chasing running units at your peril. You need to scout & give chase not just charge as running into range of a group of 6-10 guns is not uncommon meaning you can lose much more than you gain.
Can be more problamatic than most humans as they tend to commit everything forgetting about defence in depth.

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by Imp

Quite a lot actually make the rookie mistake of chasing running units at your peril. You need to scout & give chase not just charge as running into range of a group of 6-10 guns is not uncommon meaning you can lose much more than you gain.
Can be more problamatic than most humans as they tend to commit everything forgetting about defence in depth.

The AI is willing to have defensive units deployed and leave them there, whereas a human often cannot stop himself moving things about for the sake of it. Soon, everything is committed or at least out of place.

It is therefore vital to have an uncommitted reserve, especially in PBEM games against another human.

This one is already in the "Military Quotations" section of the GG, which every player should read from time to time, since there are pearls of wisdom in those:

"He, general or mere captain, who employs every one in the storming of a position can be sure of seeing it retaken by an organised counter-attack of four men and a corporal.", Colonel Ardant du Picq

Andy