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DDuck's Factory Town AAR - Analysis


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On another thread Daffy Duck (lol) pointed to a website of his where he put up a number of AARs. One of them is here -

http://www.squaregear.net/cmbb/b5.shtml

I've been commenting on some of these AARs, and here is my next installment. The last dealt with a defensive plan ("A bit defensive"). This one deals with planning an attack "Factory Town").

The format is comments on DDs own AAR. Understand I haven't seen the actual battle and was not in it, I am just analysing what he has related. I hope some find it interesting.

Factory Town AAR comments

First, notice that the fight revolved around the approach march through open countryside, instead of a fight in the city as you had hoped. This is a quirk of the QB system for urban terrain.

Instead of giving an actual city, it puts a small block of built up city in the middle of wide open terrain, in a thick border around the city area. Which is typically a ridiculously small 400x400m area. If you want an actual city fight using a random map, you have to go through a number of steps to get a proper map. To start with, select urban terrain and large map size. Then "crop" the random map on all sides, to remove the open "borders". Save the map. Import it as the map for the QB.

Next look at your force selection. You took a company each of regular infantry and pioneers. That is OK, a bit heavy on the pioneers, who have poor small arms but do get demo charges. They are needed most against mines rather than buildings. Normally you'd only take a company on them in a battalion sized fight, to get 3 small pioneer groups to clear mines or use demo charges on several routes of advance. With a fight this small, one platoon of them would be more typical, with the balance spent on a 4th regular platoon or a recon platoon.

The choice of 3 82mm mortar FOs was unrealistic and not very effective for the terrain you were up against. Understand, those are battalion level mortars. You'd typically see one FO at a battle, or none, but not a flock of them. They are too light to handle heavy buildings effectively. You'd have been better off with heavier caliber FOs, 120mm, 122mm, or 152mm. The delays on those types can be long (120s are a livable 5 minutes), so you may want to use a first turn fire plan. Urban maps tend to be small as to the actual building area. The buildings near the flags or on the route to them will generally be well stocked with defenders, so you can guess where to aim fire plan arty.

As for the HMG teams, they are fine as support weapons, and a truck to help move them is an OK idea. You should appreciate that their firepower is limited against stone buildings, however. They can still be useful when sighted down streets to stop enemy repositionings. And as they get closer their firepower and ROF rise. The best place for them is 1-2 streets back from the area reached, so most defenders can't see them, they can cover long avenues, and with slight keyholed angles can hit one or two occupied enemy buildings at reasonably close range.

But neither HMGs nor light 82mm mortars are going to deal with large numbers of enemy infantry in heavy buildings. That means the heavy lifting was left to your 3 tanks, whose direct fire HE is very effective against buildings, and to your squad infantry (especially the better armed regular type) at close range, across streets. For the last to work you have to make it into the city, though. Which is not at all easy with that default open border, as you found. So much for force selection issues.

Then we come to your initial plan. It wasn't exactly inspired. You didn't pick a real point of attack, selected for its vunerability. You didn't pick areas of cover from which to fight your ordinary infantry. You didn't have a plan to get the men into the town. You just walked forward across the open with a few HMGs to reply to enemy lighting you up. As you saw, that did not work very well.

You have to start by analysing the terrain. The church is the most exposed heavy building, and the first really good cover available in the town. It has a few buildings and patches of trees on the way, just to the right of the road. There are only two other significant bits of cover short of the town, the modest block of pines on the direct route to the first row of buildings, and the large patch of scattered trees over on the right edge, with some brush and scattered trees on the way to them. Together these flank the church.

Then there is that first row of buildings. Just look at them - what a deathtrap. They are surrounded by open ground, which is flat. All of them are small and low. There is a long line of defensive positions opposite them. The combo means no dead ground - each building creates only a tiny "shadow" against only a few enemy positions, while others can easily sight through the gaps between, crossing fires on your side of each one.

A frontal attack by infantry looks pretty suicidal. A much better idea is to first seize the church, suppress the nearby buildings, and then go after the right side (from your point of view). If you can get the church and one large building beyond it (diagonally across the street), you will have views that cut the defense into three sectors. Before going past the church, heavy building near it (which you can thus suppress) block significant portions of the view beyond, making the church a decent place to shelter.

On the right, the line of heavy buildings just across the street from the factory shields most of the right side from the factory itself. There are small buildings for cover beyond the scattered trees. Past the diagonal road on that side, views from the center are limited - you mostly only have to worry about the guys straight ahead in the "right suburb".

Now, imagine your whole tank platoon positioned between the church and the scattered trees on the right. They could hit all the relevant buildings holding up an infantry advance on the right. T-34s have a lot of HE. You could afford to blast building after building on that side, to shoot through the "up", forward defenders. Then the main body of the infantry would go forward into the resulting rubble, and clear out the survivors.

The tanks still have "overwatch" of that line of buildings masking the factory, without moving. They help shoot your infantry into it. Only after that do they have to move forward. You'd be clear through the right side suburb by then. So one could swing all the way around to the street behind the factory parallel to your original start line.

Another could take the street in front of the factory parallel to your start line, by going to the near side of that row of buildings. And the last could look down the street to the right of the factory, by being near the second but "hugging" the building across the street. All three would be looking right at the area of the large flag, and you'd already have one small one in the right suburb itself.

Their MGs isolate the factory except on the far left. And they can dump in short range HE or canister on any "up" defenders trying to contest your infantry crossing the street. Once infantry is *inside* the factory, you can just proceed from right to left through it, with tanks able to see the front and back edges to help when heavy resistence is encountered.

Now, what are the hard parts of this approach plan? Getting infantry forward into the scattered trees on the right. You have some bits of cover and the ranges are long, but the early part of the approach is open ground. Getting into the church - there is some cover along the road route, but only enough for a thin line of men and with open ground gaps between each, until the church is reached. You only need a platoon and HMGs in the church area, but you do need somebody there, to suppress fire from nearby buildings when the right hook goes in.

So how can these approach problems be solved? Well, look at that planned area for your tanks to "set up". It is a modest gap between the church and the scattered trees on the right. Basically all the lines of sight from the town area to the open part of the right hook route pass through that one gap. So think "smoke mission there", for the minute or three you need to get infantry up into the scattered trees. In addition, the tanks can set up there, a bit back from the gap itself (slightly "keyholing"). They can then see and blast anyone shooting up your movers.

What about getting men down the right side of the street and into the church, early on? Well, you can overwatch with tanks from far back, to see the church itself and the first few buildings beyond it. Then you send one platoon through those bits of cover, using "advance" to cross the open ground bits, one half squad leading and the rest moving out one at a time. The leading guy will get shot at - but you don't expose much. The tanks then blow up the shooter. Repeat, another little bound. Taking time to rally if pinned, or sending the next squad back (rotating the role of "point").

HMGs farther back can sight down the road, too. Once you get someone into the church - near side of it at first, using its bulk to block LOS completely - you can bring up a tank behind it. That gives LOS over to the left, while sheltering from most of the town. Most of the remaining spots for shooters at the approach route can be hit from there. As you clear out positions, parts of the route get safe, and HMGs can move forward to the next bit of cover, closer to the church.

Eventually you can use the truck to bring 2 more HMGs up behind the church - probably off road to the right, using the dead ground the church's "shadow" creates. Then they go in the back, reposition, and sight down the road forward and off to the left front. If there are guys in the building right across the street, you deal with them first with T-34 canister from just behind the church, then squad fire across the street. This might all take some time, but it needn't involve high losses. And in the later portions of it, you can move out on the right.

Ideally, you want men in the church first, because otherwise your tanks are getting pretty close to the town ahead of infantry. All of these considerations thus lead to a choreographed "move order" for the right hook plan. 1. get men into the church (includes 1 T-34 up behind it, at first) 2. tanks forward to the gap. 3. scouts cross toward scattered trees, tanks suppress those who shoot at them. 4. smoke across the gap, with infantry rush to the scattered trees by the main body 5. firefight from the scattered tree area and first few buildings against right "suburb". 6. Advance into the right suburb, tanks overwatching. 7. Take last line of buildings right of the factory. 8. reposition tanks on either end of that block. 9. Outshoot defenders in the factory. 10. Cross into the factory and mop up.

That is a darn sight more complicated than "send out a half squad on each side and see who shoots that them. Expect to send one platoon forward behind each half squad. Have the rest of the force wait and decide which way to go later, after the defender picks how to mess up the scouts".

See how terrain analysis drives the planning process? How you think in terms of seperating defenders, reducing their lines of sight onto your men at every stage? How you think of the role of each weapon in the overall operation, with one type helping another into a better position? How the whole plan tries to fight limited groups of the enemy in sequence, from good cover and with good firefight conditions, all the way onto the objective?

You saw in the actual fight how much the firepower of your tanks constituted nearly your whole attack. You also failed to wait for broken infantry to rally after initial set backs, sending in additional infantry piecemeal, just because they were still in good order.

You only got infantry forward when your tanks outshot local defenders or the defender's own smoke missions on your tanks blocked his own LOS lines to the open ground beyond the town. You had trouble with a single MG because it was beyond full ID range for a long time.

You found enemy guns only when they shot up one of your tanks, which had to be far forward because your infantry was messed up and they were carrying your whole force. You had no other weapons ready to KO guns that went for your tanks. Your tanks were scattered, so others did not KO the guns when they fired at neighboring tanks. Your arty was too light to seriously help except against such guns, but instead you dumped light rounds all over creation without LOS.

You probably did serious damage to the enemy infantry only when it recklessly left cover trying to counterattack you, plus of course your tank HE. The enemy losses are what kept the defeat minor, and those were due to tanks with plenty of HE in a town, and a dumb AI leaving cover to come after you, when they did not have to.

I hope this is interesting.

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JasonC,

Excellent AAR, as usual, the difference with your AAR is that you provide the rationale for executing the tactics, for alot of students/players of CMBB, this is very useful.

I was thinking yesterday, why not put AARs into a downloadable Database like UCMBBVDB ?

the database could be a collection point of the Scenarios, Text per turn, Graphics per turn. Of coss, one question is what is consistent across all AARs ?

Well,

- Title of Scenarios

- Scenario itself (downloadable)

- Stats like date, whether etc

- Force Composition (yours)

- Intelligences gathered

- Turn: Turn number

- Turn: Saved Game (Downloadable)

- Turn: Text for Turn

- Turn: Graohics (May ne more than 1)

- End: Stats

- End: Comments

The idea is a Book Metaphor, where topics could be Types of Scenario (like Terrain (urban, steppes etc) or Attack Type (Axis Probe, Attack, Assault etc) or even via date (to track historical scenarios). Chapters could be either be AARs itself. The whole database would be read like a book, Left-side is text, right side is Graphics.

Let me know if this is a good idea, I may want to create a generic AAR DB for players to start recording their memorable AARs.

If you are agreeable, I could use Duck Factory Town AAR as the Reference case smile.gif

laxx

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Um, it is the other guy's AAR. I'm just commenting on it. As for making a library of AARs, it is a reasonable enough idea. Go ahead.

I provide tactical analysis because the AAR writer invited discussion of his AARs. A previous one (Newbie still learning thread) was well received. It covered defense planning, the idea here was to give an example of attack planning.

Frankly I'd be more interested in actual comments on substance than any amount of archiving offers or at a boys. Please examine the original AAR and consider the tactical problem it represents. Otherwise my comments might as well be cuniform.

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Guest Sgt. Emren

Excellent analysis, JasonC. Ideally we should be able to download the scenario to try it out for ourselves, to see what difference e.g. your plan would make. In any case, great tutorial on attack planning.

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Thanks again for all your comments JasonC. I'm learning a lot.

I should note for the record that the lousy map is my own fault. I wanted to try out the editor and I threw this together to play on. It was the very first time I even opened up the editor so my map design was obviously far from masterful.

Thanks for explaining the use of pioneers. I picked them mostly because I didn't know how to use them and I wanted to see what they could do. That's sort of the problem with CMBB for a beginner like me: there are so many different units to know about. They are all based on actually historical units and so one may assume that each was formed to serve some specific purpose, but I don't know enough period military history to know what all those purposes were. I can learn by trial and error but with this many units it would take forever. What I long for is a list of all the different units with a sentence or two explanation of what their role was historically and/or their usefulness in the game. I know that building such a list would take a lot of work. Maybe a breakdown of major types of units with slightly longer descriptions would be more reasonable. Does anything like this exist? If not, does anybody want to start putting one together? I'd be willing to host it on my website.

Back to this game, though. I actually replayed this one and never wrote it up. I tried to think through all the things that had gone wrong and devise a better plan. I definitely think I had a better plan, but frankly anything would have been better. Instead of scattering my forces around I concentrated on one side. I chose the left, hoping the pines would screen my approach a bit and figuring that it offered a shorter path into the factory itself. I saturated the left with artillery as I advanced to keep the enemy's head down. I was also much more careful to rally my men before moving them when they did come under fire. The biggest problem I had was artillery. As soon as the enemy saw where I was coming from he dropped artillery all over the approach. Is smoke the best solution to this? A lone observer or mortar team can mess up a lot of guys with well placed shelling. Is the only answer to obscure their line of sight? Any tips on avoiding enemy artillery would be appreciated.

JasonC, would you mind if I put your comments up on my website? I'd like to attach your analysis to my AARs and maybe have an "Advice from JasonC" page where I collect them all together.

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Yes you can put my comments on your site. Flattered.

As for dealing with artillery, the main answer is not to push, to be willing to back off. Artillery is ammo limited. That means it hits very hard but not for very long. In addition, it suppresses or breaks far more than it kills. This is especially true of lighter caliber artillery, or ones against men with decent cover.

Most of the effects of a shelling pass within 2 minutes of the end of the shelling itself. Rattled units may take 5 minutes to recover. Barrages themselves last only a few minutes before the ammo is exhausted. The net result is that 5 minutes after a barrage begins, you are "through it", and 10 minutes after, the net effect is only large if very heavy stuff was used, or a lot of moderate stuff that caught you in the open.

As soon as you see rounds falling, you should be thinking about getting out of the way, not about continuing the plan. The plan goes out the window and you expect a delay of 5 minutes. Do not press forward trying to get "through" the barrage. Only scattered forces will make it, they will wind up in close contact, and fight disorganized and suppressed. Your men are most vunerable to enemy infantry while the shells are still falling, or immediately after. If instead you go backward, the barrage itself will seperate your men from the enemy, protecting them until they have recovered.

Occasionally part of your force can side step into cover instead. Only try that if you know you will get clear of the barrage, and into cover, with only a short move over any open ground between. It is very easy to get pinned by e.g. MG fire trying to get out of the barrage zone, and so remain trapped under it. That way lies sorrow. When in doubt, back up. Remember that longer range is itself a mild form of cover against enemy infantry.

The defender *can* delay you with artillery fire. Bank on it. He cannot keep it up all day, however. And he can't afford enough shells to literally wipe you out. He counts instead on the disorganization the barrage inflicts, and on following it up with ground action or using the resulting time to adapt his defense to your attack. Don't give him the "multiplier" of pushing too hard into the barrage, or of a counterattack by him into broken men.

You must also avoid bunching up too tightly - that also multplies the effect of artillery. No more than one platoon of infantry should be under one tight sheaf sized area at a time (maybe one other behind front to back, at first anyway). Do not stack a full company into a small area of cover just because it is the only cover available. It is better to "take turns" if you are cover-limited.

If you avoid giving him these "bonuses", 5-10 minutes later he will run out of shells. You won't run out of rally.

The flip side of this is that the most effective time to use your own artillery is when ground forces are in actual firefight contact, and later on in a fight when the enemy will have the least time to rally and recover. Using arty early at long range before the main engagement is a common mistake. (A little used that way to buy time to adapt, shift reserves etc, is a sound tactic. All of it used that way is a waste).

I hope that helps.

[ March 31, 2003, 01:31 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

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I use a slightly different approach.

I consider infantry caught in an accurate barrage while moving in the open an immediate write-off. It's one of those things you really don't want to happen. Discussions about what you can do with a rattled infantry unit 5-10 minutes later are of little importance IMHO. If the unit is so vital that you have to hold up everything until they've recovered, you've probably lost the game already. If it isn't that vital, push on regardless and we'll see if it has any further role to play (maybe it will be able to hold a flag or something). Plan without it.

If the barrage is mostly off target than you can probably save them. I never run them through the barrage though, that's a certain demise.

When in cover I always hide and stay put. You'll be surprised how much a platoon will take when they've got their faces in the dirt. It really takes a lot to break them. You'll take casualties of course, but normally these are not excessive. If you have really bad luck, you'll lose about 30 % (if you have really, really bad luck, you'll lose your entire HQ of course :D ).

I consider a unit with intact morale and at 70% strength of more value than a rattled one at full strength. They will only start running again at the first sign of trouble.

Maybe I just don't have the skill to get my men out of a pickle, but I've found that's the best way for me to make the most of a bad situation.

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