Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson 3

I beg to differ, IMHO the rank is purely 'chrome' and has no bearing on the commander performance.

Roger

quote:

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

The thing that confuses most new players about land combat is that the raw Assault Value is not the essential part of comparing the balance of forces. Raw AV will let you know if you have enough squads to consider an attack but it is the firepower that you can muster against your opponent that has the biggest effect in deciding the outcome.

A machine gun will obviously give you more firepower than a rifle, but it will not affect an enemy tank, so you need to have anti-tank weapons to balance the firepower of his tanks.

You need artillery too, not just dinky 3" mortars - they help a little with defence against an enemy attack because they are in the open then, but they are almost useless in offence against a dug-in enemy. In a bombardment duel with enemy artillery you want to have heavy guns with long range. The 155 mm "Long Tom" is ideal for this. The Japanese have some really heavy guns up to about 350mm.

Don't neglect the leaders of you units - they can save the day with good moves or hand the enemy a victory with bad ones. Leadership, Land Skill and Aggression are the most important characteristics. Political Points are scarce so buy the best leaders for you biggest, most experienced units first.

Monitor the disruption, morale and fatigue levels of your units. If these are low do not seek battle. Many players arrange to rotate units out of a lengthy battle to recuperate and replace losses.

Supply is absolutely essential to conducting combat. A unit out of supply will fight (at best) at 25% of the raw AV. And don't be fooled by the standard supply needs of the unit on the unit screen. That reflects a unit doing routine stuff or training - not combat. Combat will accelerate the supply usage by many times. Plan on having at least 10X the daily needs supply for a tough battle.

Do not Shock Attack against a well-fortified enemy position where they have supply or lots of artillery. Shock attacks are very disruptive on your own troops and losses can be very high even if the SA is successful. Reserve your SA until the enemy units show signs of cracking - e.g. when your Deliberate Attack starts to cause more destroyed enemy squads than disabled ones.

Those are just a few of my personal rules of thumb. I am by no means an expert in the land war game so others may have different advice. Much will depend on the risk you are comfortable with and your loss tolerance. Masters of the game will sacrifice significant numbers of troops to gain strategic position but I rarely try things without overwhelming strength. Pick your own style. Good Luck!

quote:

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson 3

This doesn't say it explicitly, but indicates its their stats that are important - worth a read:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2350193

Roger

quote:

Also, I have never had it confirmed but am sure that you must assign the proper rank. For example, a brigade should be under the command of at least a brigadier, a major general for a division, a smaller unit should have a lt. colonel or full colonel, any combat TF force more than a few ships should be under at least a rear admiral and your front line fighter squadron should have a major in command not a Lt. or Captain. It seems to me that a unit performs better with an average officer of the proper rank than it does with a brilliant lower ranking officer.

It seems that units train better as well.

Perhaps I am wrong but I don't think so.

quote:

ORIGINAL: rustysi

quote:

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson 3

I beg to differ, IMHO the rank is purely 'chrome' and has no bearing on the commander performance.

Roger

Has not been my experience. Although it is possible it was just bad die rolls. At any rate once the officer was replaced things turned around.

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Loka is spot on.

Fatigue and disruption are not reported in combat reports. You need to monitor your own and consider the state of your opponent's.

IN the LCU interface, not the individual LCU interface, but the list of all LCUs in a hex, in the upper right corner is clickable text that toggles "show hard" and "show soft".

Click this text and you get a listing of stats often overlooked if you only use the default view of the interface.

This list provides many useful stats including fatigue and disruption.

It's also good to remember that the combat report itself is extremely misleading, especially for us old board gamers who automatically read combat odds as determining the outcome.

This is not the case in WITPAE. The combat odds are only calculated AFTER all damage has been incurred from units firing on units and is ONLY used to determine if fort levels are reduced and/or if a retreat is forced.

Firepower is everything in land combat.

Combat odds mean very little.

quote:



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ground combat at 85,44 (near Nanyang)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 70267 troops, 996 guns, 2044 vehicles, Assault Value = 2225

Defending force 35456 troops, 78 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 874

Japanese adjusted assault: 528

Allied adjusted defense: 880

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 2

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), leaders(+), disruption(-), supply(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
3590 casualties reported
Squads: 104 destroyed, 123 disabled
Non Combat: 43 destroyed, 50 disabled
Engineers: 27 destroyed, 19 disabled
Guns lost 34 (22 destroyed, 12 disabled)
Vehicles lost 152 (38 destroyed, 114 disabled)

Allied ground losses:
1729 casualties reported
Squads: 12 destroyed, 132 disabled
Non Combat: 39 destroyed, 17 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 7 disabled

quote:

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Loka is spot on.

Fatigue and disruption are not reported in combat reports. You need to monitor your own and consider the state of your opponent's.

IN the LCU interface, not the individual LCU interface, but the list of all LCUs in a hex, in the upper right corner is clickable text that toggles "show hard" and "show soft".

Click this text and you get a listing of stats often overlooked if you only use the default view of the interface.

This list provides many useful stats including fatigue and disruption.

It's also good to remember that the combat report itself is extremely misleading, especially for us old board gamers who automatically read combat odds as determining the outcome.

This is not the case in WITPAE. The combat odds are only calculated AFTER all damage has been incurred from units firing on units and is ONLY used to determine if fort levels are reduced and/or if a retreat is forced.

Firepower is everything in land combat.

Combat odds mean very little.

One (really minor) exception.

quote:



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ground combat at 85,44 (near Nanyang)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 70267 troops, 996 guns, 2044 vehicles, Assault Value = 2225

Defending force 35456 troops, 78 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 874

Japanese adjusted assault: 528

Allied adjusted defense: 880

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 2

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), leaders(+), disruption(-), supply(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
3590 casualties reported
Squads: 104 destroyed, 123 disabled
Non Combat: 43 destroyed, 50 disabled
Engineers: 27 destroyed, 19 disabled
Guns lost 34 (22 destroyed, 12 disabled)
Vehicles lost 152 (38 destroyed, 114 disabled)

Allied ground losses:
1729 casualties reported
Squads: 12 destroyed, 132 disabled
Non Combat: 39 destroyed, 17 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 7 disabled

Does not change anything about the validity of your post though. Totally agree.

quote:

ORIGINAL: dave sindel

@ Hans - I grew up playing Avalon Hill board games - with "zones of control" and the odds easily calculated from the numbers on the unit counters. Perhaps that's part of my difficulty in understanding WITPAE combat. Thanks for the tip on the LCU interface. I'll check that out.

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

quote:

ORIGINAL: dave sindel

@ Hans - I grew up playing Avalon Hill board games - with "zones of control" and the odds easily calculated from the numbers on the unit counters. Perhaps that's part of my difficulty in understanding WITPAE combat. Thanks for the tip on the LCU interface. I'll check that out.

Same here. Cut my wargaming teeth on Panzer Blitz in the early 70's.

I came to this game engine with Uncommon Valor and spent my first 5-6 years railing against the "misleading' combat reports.

Finally I learned to accept that it is what it is....the greatest wargame ever made, in spite of the many minor flaws.

quote:

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

quote:

ORIGINAL: dave sindel

@ Hans - I grew up playing Avalon Hill board games - with "zones of control" and the odds easily calculated from the numbers on the unit counters. Perhaps that's part of my difficulty in understanding WITPAE combat. Thanks for the tip on the LCU interface. I'll check that out.

Same here. Cut my wargaming teeth on Panzer Blitz in the early 70's.

I came to this game engine with Uncommon Valor and spent my first 5-6 years railing against the "misleading' combat reports.

Finally I learned to accept that it is what it is....the greatest wargame ever made, in spite of the many minor flaws.

What do you mean? I like freckles, they are not minor flaws or any other type of flaw. They are to be cherished. The only flaw I can find with this game is I don't always win. There has to be something wrong with the game.

By the way, I filed my nails on Fire in the East.

quote:

ORIGINAL: m10bob

Land combat?....Never attack with less than a 3 to 1 advantage....Interdict enemy supply when possible with paratroopers or planes by blocking roads in his rear or bombing his points of supply and airfields.
(Even your hungry paratroopers still block lines of supply).

quote:

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

My brother had that North Africa game. IIRC he mounted the map on a sheet of galvanized steel, hung it on his wall and mounted the pieces on magnets.

I believe the stacking rules were enforced by either the pieces falling off the map or sliding into the Qattara Depression.