Overstacking in attack

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Overstacking in attack - 11/20/2012 5:10:25 PM

olivier34

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From: montpellier
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I always avoid to overstack when I launch an attack. (Since I play DC1). When I get a result "defender did hold", I don't launch a "second wave" because I have experience that most of the time you get nothing but more losses. I have seen some battle reports in AARs and it seems that I am wrong and that sometimes attacking again (despite overstacking) can be interesting.

The rules says "If you overstack, your troops will be more vulnerable and fight less well. You can overstack in defense as well as in attack. Overstacking makes attacks and defense stronger, at the cost of higher casualty rates. Stack points spent in a failed attack are saved for the next attack on the same hex.the penalty is exponential rather than linear."

Here is a report of a battle. (Uranus scenario). I launch an artillery attack (stacking of 100, not more...) and the attack himself, overstacking a little. The soviets don't take the position...

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RE: Overstacking in attack - 11/20/2012 5:17:03 PM

olivier34

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From: montpellier
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I have red that the soviets could launch a first wave...that retreat after a few hours and heavy casualties and then a second wave with some tanks in support. Let's do that...and finally the 113th german infantry breaks.
Have other players experience such results ? In this scenario I have a lot of infantry that I can waste but I was a little septic before pressing the attack button

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RE: Overstacking in attack - 11/20/2012 5:41:58 PM

wallas

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Overstacking in general is not a good idea unless you really want to hold onto a hex.

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RE: Overstacking in attack - 11/20/2012 7:20:11 PM

76mm

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against the AI I overstacked on the offensive all the time. I think there is an advantage to accruing overwhelming odds which offsets the disadvantages of overstacking.

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RE: Overstacking in attack - 11/20/2012 7:30:55 PM

wallas

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quote:

ORIGINAL: 76mm

against the AI I overstacked on the offensive all the time.

Dont play the AI but against a human who see's the overstack it will hurt. When my opponent or myself overstack I will bomb him and artillerry him for huge increase in losses. I also suffer the same fate when overstacked but sometimes its necessary to hold onto a vital hex.

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RE: Overstacking in attack - 11/20/2012 8:47:10 PM

Bonners

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I think it was worth you doing in this situation. Obviously the quicker you take Stalingrad the better, so it is worth a little extra losses knowing that I will not be able to counter attack your forces in that area. The thing to note is when the battle screen comes up you'll generally take some losses before the defenders, in this case your losses would have been lower if there was no overstacking. However, the other side of the equation is that your initial attack had significantly reduced the defenders entrenchment, so if you'd waited a turn you would've had to have started all over again.

With defence you have to be careful. When I played Isokron as Germans, when I tried to take Voronezh I took a hex and deliberately overstacked to try and hold it. However he managed to take the hex back and one of my units was wiped out completely; according to Isokron this is due to the unit being counter as the overstacked unit which meant it was not able to retreat and suffered a complete loss.

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RE: Overstacking in attack - 11/21/2012 2:44:46 AM

76mm

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quote:

Dont play the AI but against a human who see's the overstack it will hurt. When my opponent or myself overstack I will bomb him and artillerry him for huge increase in losses. I also suffer the same fate when overstacked but sometimes its necessary to hold onto a vital hex.

I usually don't overstack hexes, on defense or otherwise, but when attacking would often attack from multiples hexes resulting in an "overstacked attack" if that makes sense.

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RE: Overstacking in attack - 11/21/2012 4:33:24 AM

LiquidSky

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My PBEM opponent decided he really, really wanted to keep a hex adjacent to where I had an entire 3 division korp of Germans stacked. The hex would have outflanked his Fortress hexes and given a panzer korp an avenue to attack, so I can see him wanting to keep it.

Anyways, he put at least 300 stacking points of stuff in the hex.

SO I bombed it...probably killed about 500 men, but disrupted only a bit of every unit.
I then hit it with about 75 stacking points of artillery, some of which affected with bonus from cards. (freedom from Manstein).
Probably killed about 1000 men. And disrupted a bit of every unit.

Then I attack. With about 100 stacking points. I inflict massive casualties (losing about 500 men)....probably around 140 strength points. But fail to take the hex. So I attack again with another 100 strength points. I take about 300 casualties as I inflict about 100 strength points worth of losses. But the hex holds due to a single strength point of armour, and an artillery unit.

I suspect that the first attack lowers readiness. And morale. So if you attack it again, you may suffer less casualties because the enemies readiness drop (but a little more due to overstacking), but inflict more because of his morale drop.

Come the next turn, there would be no way he could hold it with those same units. As it was, he moved two fresh divisions in from reinforcements, and played a fortification card....so he did get to keep the hex.

_____________________________

�My logisticians are a humorless lot � they know if my campaign fails, they are the first ones I will slay.� � Alexander the Great

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RE: Overstacking in attack - 11/21/2012 11:14:18 AM

Isokron

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quote:

With defence you have to be careful. When I played Isokron as Germans, when I tried to take Voronezh I took a hex and deliberately overstacked to try and hold it. However he managed to take the hex back and one of my units was wiped out completely; according to Isokron this is due to the unit being counter as the overstacked unit which meant it was not able to retreat and suffered a complete loss.

This was a quite extreme situation though, the game allows up to 16 counters per hex but you had like 10 counters in the attacked hex and 8 in the only hex they could retreat to.

If you want to get a better feel for overstacking (or anything else really) just play a game against yourself without fow and you can see the exact math used in the detail for the combat.

(in reply to Bonners)

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RE: Overstacking in attack - 11/21/2012 4:52:15 PM

olivier34

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From: montpellier
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I have done a few testing (same situation, I had save the turn) and I was not abble to take the hex a second time...Seems that I have been lucky.

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