Slitherine

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on to show the Army how its done in Africa and Europe.

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ORIGINAL: eburr155

I’ve resigned myself to the fact that the Marines don’t have...

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ORIGINAL: eburr155

So while I look furtively around for this Wild Bill guy ...

Thanks. I won't feel guilty about buying those 90mms. Of course if the computer thinks my guys can fight from Luzon to New Guinea to Gualdalcanal without a break, I wasn't going to feel guilty about it anyway. The least the War Department can do is give me ONE great weapons system. Besides the 155s and the .50-cals I mean.

As an aside, KG, my core force is almost exactly what you advised Terminus to get. Cross Lanes, huh. I grew up in Parkersburg.

Now I think I need tactical advice.

My first five battles were all defend/delays on maps with no lines of sight, so I had lots of mines and set up the MLR to cover the victory hexes. I had the three tank platoons deployed well forward with three tanks up front and the other two a couple of hexes back, each with a rifle or engineer platoon and a light mortar section for support. Contact usually came on about turn 7 or 8, with the Japanese forced to retreat after getting hit by 75mm, .50-cal, and flamethorwer opfires. Short range mortar shots really did a number on them. And pulling the outposts back 100 yards after each contact meant the Jap mortars and arty came down on empty jungle. Really the only thing that didn't work out was when I'd forget and leave the mortars too far forward and they got clobbered by riflemen.

That and buying the 75mm pack howitzers, which couldn't cover the outpost line. But with five straight decisive victories I won't complain about that.

But now I've got an advance mission over realatively open terrain. I put my armor and a SPAA platoon (each with a rifle platoon in support) in overwatch positions overlooking the areas inside the green flags on the setup map.

Two turns later I've lost more tanks (three) then I have in the rest of the campaign to mortars, plus a pair of M15s, the only thing I've spotted are two knee mortar sections 10-12 hexes away and the vehicles that are still around are buttoned from taking long range small arms fire. My maunvering infantry is all intact and unspotted since they're coming from between the ridgelines or through the jungle with plenty of smoke on their flanks.

So. Is there some kind of timing needed for overwatch or am I doing it wrong? Instead of using armor for overwatch, I'm thinking I should use my .50s for a base of fire, since they're all unspotted at 10-12 hexes, I've got 21 of them in the rifle and weapons companies, and leave my tanks at a similar range but back in the jungle so they can move one hex, shoot at spotted units and go back into hiding. Or maybe keep the armor with the manuvering infantry to provide close range firepower.

In the long-term I have real questions about my core force organization. It seems to me these six-unit rifle platoons are a bit unwieldy. I'm thinking of coverting the platoon HQs to regular rifle squads (once the E series is availible), splitting off the BAR sqauds to something with short range firepower and assigning them to my tank platoons, and converting one rifle squad from each platoon to special forces, since the Raider demolition squads seem to be a great, if time consuming way to deal with the 20+ onboard tubes the AI seems to have every battle.

And while the encyclopedia says rifle grenades with the E series squads have a HEAT penetration of 100, is that true? Or should I convert that extra rifle squad in each platoon to a bazooka team?