MarkShot
Posts: 7089
Joined: 3/29/2003
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It has gotten awefully quiet in here. I guess everyone is holding their breath until they can download COTA. Well, at least, you were all smart enough not to hold your breath until it went gold! :)
Let's have another tip, shall we?
Is it ever worthwhile to ATTACK or PROBE with a force that is hopelessly too weak to be successful? The question would almost seem to be a "no brainer". However, in fact, the commander may reap some big dividends even when the attack has little chance of success. Here are some circumstances when it may be beneficial:
(1) If the coordinates for the ATTACK happen to coincide with a major objective for which the OPFOR is likely to accrue a major portion of its points due to occupation as opposed to completion. Of course, there is no way to be 100% sure, since there is no guarantee that scoring is symmetric. However, more often than not, scoring does tend to be symmetric. In particular, transport related objectives like bridges, tunnels, airfields, ports, and key road junctures most likely will have their objective points heavily weighted towards occupation. (Also, it is my gut feel that occupation points are more frequently employed in COTA scenarios than they were HTTR scenarios.)
So, if your weak forces can simply encroach on the objective, then you can deny the enemy the accumulation of occupation points that would accrue. (Translating into real world denying the use of the transport locus.)
(2) You have significant arty or air support resources at your disposal. A weak attack can be quite useful for developing target lists for your guns and CAS missions. Thus, although the attack itself doesn't hurt the enemy too much, you can wear him down for the main attack later by heavy bombardment.
(3) The OPFOR has not really had time to prepare its defense of the target area. Meaning that most of the OPFOR units have just arrived or are arriving. Thus, their deployment status is moving or deployed, but not dug-in or entrenched. You may be planning an attack in the next 6-18 hours with the use of overwhelming force. So, why bother with a futile attempt right now? Well, your futile attempt may keep the enemy occupied and prevent his units from being able to dig-in. Your later attack will perform much better if when they arrive the enemy is not dug-in; and even better if heavy weapons are on the move and have not had a chance to deploy.
(4) The OPFOR might be prevented from restructuring its units, forces, and orders in order to achieve a better defensive posture. I don't know if this point is true of the OPFOR AI, but it is most likely true for human opponents. Due to order delays and inherent coordination problems, I will most often leave it to my AI commanders to coordinate an attack or a hasty defense. In such cases, micro-managing will usually be counter productive. However, usually after my AI commanders have successfully achieved their assigned tasks and the situation is quiet, I may restructure things by micro-management to optimize my defensive posture. In most cases, if my units are currently engaged with the enemy, I will be more hesitant about issuing new orders for fear of causing unstructured chaos. Thus, a weak attack may prevent the OPFOR (especially human) from having adequate breathing room to optimize his defensive posture for the coming main attack. Trying to optimize a defensive posture while engaged can often result in individual units becoming critically exposed and dug-in units relinquishing their prepare positions as they displace. So, once again an initial weak attack may do much to aid the chances of a follow on main attack.
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That's it for today. The clock ticks and COTA is one hour closer. :)
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(於 11/13/21 台北，台灣，中國退休)
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RE: COTA (mini-guide): Tutorial, AAR, and tips! - 
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