some questions about SP...

[RedGuard]

I have played SP for days and I must admit that the game is awesome. But then I found some strange things happened.

1. What will happen when an A0 is destoryed? It seems nothing serious and the inferiors would fight as usual.
2. Every single shot would cause dozens of opfire by enemies. It seems impossible during a fierce firefight.
3. Is a tank's response excessively fast? I once tried to sneak attack a tank's rear and then it turned around and shot my infantry who just have moved one hex. It felt like this tank rotated a 180° in a few seconds...

I hope my bad english would be understood by everyone for i don't use it very often- -

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by RedGuard

I have played SP for days and I must admit that the game is awesome. But then I found some strange things happened.

1. What will happen when an A0 is destoryed? It seems nothing serious and the inferiors would fight as usual.
2. Every single shot would cause dozens of opfire by enemies. It seems impossible during a fierce firefight.
3. Is a tank's response excessively fast? I once tried to sneak attack a tank's rear and then it turned around and shot my infantry who just have moved one hex. It felt like this tank rotated a 180° in a few seconds...

I hope my bad english would be understood by everyone for i don't use it very often- -

1) Losing A0 in a campaign (except a human v human PBEM) ends the campaign at that battle.

Losing A0 in a game is a morale hit. All rallying will be less effective if A0 is dead or in retreat. If A0 is K/O then the "force broken" result is easier to achieve. If your force is broken, then everyone is in panic and rally chances fall dramatically for all.

As it is the communications rear link as well then comms to off-map units will be less reliable.

A0 is therefore not a combat unit - it should "hide with pride" as SSBNs do.

2) Opportunity fire is triggered on all enemy units in range. Some "on the edge" may not fire from shot to shot, however - there is a random element if the to-hit chance is not quite high enough and a skill throw as well. Also - an owner of the full game may have set up some opfire filtering as well.

Some units which have fired > their max shots may generate op-fire shots in excess (based on an experience and morale throw, as well as weapon warhead size). That stops (or at least makes less certain!) the original SP trick of teasing out the main gun shots of a Tiger with lesser units, then driving a T34 up to execute it at 1 hex. Now you cannot be quite sure if the Tiger crew "pulls a rabbit out of the hat" or not.

3) In SP of any flavour, rotation (hull or turret) has nil cost and is always instant.

Since it is not a time-based (physics based) game other than the turns' time slice there really is no way around this. There is no concept of time within a turn (and no way to do so unless say, you split a move into several sub-phases as many tabletop and bored games rules do. SP turns are deliberately unstructured - that makes the game much easier for novices than say ploughing through phases 1 through 12.13.24 of some sort of old-style hex based bored game. Would you like to have to pass your PBEM turn back and forth for 12 or 20 sub-phases, and perhaps additional sub-sub phases ?).

I do have some rough ideas which I may look into implementing some day to ameliorate this, however.

Cheers
Andy

[RedGuard]

Thanks for replying me. It helps a lot.

But I believe there must be some misunderstanding about question 2. I mean, for instance, provided I have five infantry squads as well as my opponet do, each of the squads is able to shoot the whole five squads of the enemy, and there is no artillery, air force or sth like that. We both know that the first squad who fire will be shot by five squads opposite and surely take lots of casualties. So my opponent and I decide to stay there, wait for the enemy to attack. It is undoubtedly ridiculous.

[Cross]

It sounds like you are engaging an unsuppressed enemy, which will naturally result in a lot of opfire; which is realistic. If a squad opens fire within sight of an unsuppressed enemy platoon, I’d expect that platoon to ‘let them have it’.

You need to use better tactics:

Suppression
It’s mainly about suppression. When the enemy is suppressed (taking cover, hiding, fearful, intimidated) they won’t return fire nearly as much.
Get artillery/mortar fire down on the position you want to attack just prior and during your attack. This will cause a lot of suppression.

Hit the enemy units with MMGs or HMGs (tripod MGs) or use ‘area fire’ (Z-fire) to suppress the areas where you expect the enemy is hiding. Tripod MGs cause a lot of suppression.

Use some infantry to area fire suspected enemy locations. This will not cause as much suppression as mortars and MMGs/HMGs.

Fire and Movement
Apart from suppression, you also need to use ‘fire and movement’ to keep your casualties low.

AFTER you’ve suppressed the enemy with arty and MGs, move your infantry squad towards the enemy. If your squad takes opfire, DO NOT return fire with that squad, as enemy fire will be even more accurate the second volley. Instead, shoot some more area fire at the enemy units that fired, with your MGs or other infantry units within range.

Or direct fire at the enemy with a second squad in Line of Sight. Then enemy opfire will be switched to fire at the second squad, and as it’s a first volley they will get low hit probabilities.

NOW, you can fire at the enemy with your first squad. If they get more opfire from the enemy, it will again be a first volley (new target) with low hit chances. Then you use your second squad to fire at the enemy or move forward. If this second squads takes opfire, DO NOT return fire with the second squad, return fire with another unit.

The idea is to keep enemy opfire from hitting the same squad twice in a row, so they only fire at a target once before having to change targets. Force the enemy to keep switching targets and respond to your firing and movement. Meanwhile your squads should try to mostly fire at the same target getting higher hit chances.

These are realistic tactics, and uses ‘fire and movement’ to get squads moving forward with supporting fire. When a friendly units takes fire, let them stay pinned while other units support them with return fire.

Hope this helps
Cross

[mkr8683]

Originally Posted by Mobhack

3) In SP of any flavour, rotation (hull or turret) has nil cost and is always instant. I do have some rough ideas which I may look into implementing some day to ameliorate this, however.

Ah, the irritating 'Stug Spin'. I strongly hope something can be done about it.

Matt

[Paderborn]

Great question! The answers provided cleared some issues I've had at times. I used to think I was pretty on top of military matters but the forums leaves me in awe at how expansive the knowledge is of many of the authors.