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Larry Holt -> Tactics Guide update (6/19/2001 12:28:00 AM)
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Here is an update to my tactics guide. In the original I had not written the sections on the basic battle types (the standard tactical missions of defend, advance, meeting, delay and assault). Here is the assault one. Do you think that these are good tactics and does anyone have any other good ideas?
Assault:
Against the AIP: The AIP will defend in depth with interlocking fires but it employs a static defense. This means that it is hard to crack the defense at first but once you get in, you can reduce the defense almost at your leisure with out worrying about a strong counterattack. To get in the first task is to find the mine fields. In versions prior to 5.x, the AIP used a single linear belt of mines. The AIP still employs this but it also puts at least some mines in clusters outside the main belt to keep you guessing. The easiest means to find mines is to conduct a rolling barrage of artillery. The guns must be about 105mm or larger but the bigger, the better. A volley or two of these will certainly uncover at least one mine hex, if any are present in the impact area. Once you find one mine you need to determine if this is the main belt, running from edge to edge, or an isolated cluster. If there are other mines that are not nearby but are at about the same row then this is probably the main belt. If you only see one or two mines then nothing further up or down, keep looking.
While artillery is the safest, easiest and quickest means of finding mines, it does have disadvantages. You may not have large caliber artillery or want to use up limited ammunition for this task, it creates smoke clouds that may prevent your overwatch fires from protecting advancing units, it also may shield defenders from view thus allowing them to spring ambush close assaults on your units. Using special mine detecting vehicles is another relatively safe tactic. Finally you can always buy some cheap unit and drive it forward until it explodes. While this is kind of a cheap tactic, it accurately represents what some armies did.
Once you find mines clear lanes through them using standard mine clearing tactics (see link??). You need a balance between too many breaches and not enough. If you don't clear enough lanes, you may find your advance blocked with no alternate path to advance on. If you try to clear too many lanes, you will be spread too thin. I usually clear two or three lanes.
Once through the mine field, you have the defenders to deal with. These may be in a linear belt paralleling the mine field and/or in interlocking clusters. While clearing lanes you probably will locate some enemy units by having them fire on you. If you don't, you may need to expose some light units to trigger the AIP to fire and thus reveal themselves. Do this in an area other than where the breaches are as the breach areas should be heavily smoked. Once the AIP reveals itself, you can extrapolate its location to where it is in the breach area. That is primarily directly behind the mines or several hexes back.
Once you locate the defender's main belt, you can start reducing it then go for the AIP units in depth or go deep first them come back and mop up. I prefer reducing the main belt first as I don't feel comfortable leaving large numbers of defenders behind my advance elements and I usually want to bring up light support elements (88 mm ATGs, infantry guns, etc.) that I do not want to expose to direct fires from units in the main belt.
The main difficulty in killing defenders is that they are nearly invisible and entrenched. Thus they can bring effective fire against you while you can't see them to return fire. If you can see them, direct gun fire is not very effective. Infantry units shooting from close by (adjacent to 3 hexes) or overruns are the most effective however, getting this close and living to tell about it is dangerous. Artillery is a good means to suppress the defenders so that you can move up to them without being effectively engaged. You need to watch out for bunkers hidden in the haze from your artillery as they may not be suppressed. A good tactic here is to penetrate behind the main belt them start reducing it from behind, thus if you stumble on any bunkers, you are less likely to be shot up by them.
The AIP likes to employ supporting weapons (MGs, ATGs, ATRs, AA, etc.) in mutually supporting pairs covering each other. A very good tactic for an AIP. Once you locate such a weapon and start to move on it, be prepared to suppress or blind with smoke its mate. This is particularly true of weapons scattered about in depth.
Against humans: As always, giving advice against humans is difficult as they can do anything. They can use mines in belts or clusters in depth, etc. Lots of heavy caliber artillery is useful against anything a human can set up. Attacking on a narrow front behind a rolling barrage is one means of protecting against being ambushed by unseen defenders but this also leaves you vulnerable to defensive artillery fire. Traditionally at least a 3:1 attacker advantage is necessary for mobile engagements to achieve a 50% chance of success. For assaults a 6:1 ratio is probably more realistic. This assumes that C&C is on which is a realistic limitation. Turning it off gives the attacker more options and an advantage over the defender (who is primarily static) and could be the basis for more balanced buy points. Consider agreeing to play by historical standards or allow free play (anything goes even if it isn't very realistic) beforehand.
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