Treeburst155

I may be looney; but I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is. Can the same be said for your side of the debate? I've made an offer that is as fair as possible. You get to pick your side after studying the scenario! To refuse is to admit I am right. Prove me wrong by beating my Halfsquad Hordes! Consider it a test. You wanted a better test. Well this is it. Treeburst155 out.

Would you like to take me up on my challenge? Treeburst155 out.

A challenge to all Herders of Halfsquad Hordes!! I'll make a scenario, tourney save it, and send it to you. You study it in the editor, then pick your side and do a setup. I get halfsquads. You don't. If you beat my Halfsquad Hordes, I'll put the following in my signature for 1 year: " I, Treeburst155, am proud to be a Herder Of Halfsquad Hordes because it has been proven to me that it is not a gamey tactic." Treeburst155 out.

If I have 10 guys behind trees trying to stop 20 guys, it is reasonable to think that I just might get my butt kicked. There is no game limitation in play here. There are simply too many enemy troops to resist! The game simulates this well. By splitting a single squad, this nice simulation of overwhelming firepower is still in play; but there is NO OVERWHELMING FIREPOWER! The game limitation is that the program does not know when 2:1 unit count does NOT represent overwhelming firepower. By splitting squads, you trigger the limitation. You take advantage of what is really a good feature IMO. You want "realistic" testing? Does that mean the defending whole squad is in trenches? When ALL else is equal, a split squad will ALWAYS win over a whole squad. I think what is needed is an "in-game" test. You against me. Heavy trees. I Herd the Halfsquad Hordes. You don't. You take 1,500 points of infantry. I'll only take 1,200 because I get the Hordes. You can sit and wait for me if you want; but you get no foxholes (All else equal, remember). I'll even make a nice suitably sized forest map. Treeburst155 out. [ January 29, 2005, 06:29 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

Sanok, Run some tests. Space the halfsquads 20 meters apart. The defenders will lose EVERY SINGLE time. Two full squads represents a 2 to 1 advantage. I can understand them winning at those odds; but 1:1 or worse? No way, especially not EVERY SINGLE time, and with modest casualties too. Treeburst155 out.

The thing about Halfsquad Hordes is that the tactic is easily defeated by splitting your own squads. It's not a brilliant tactical idea. Using the tactic just forces the game into a halfsquad fight. Anyone who doesn't do it will likely lose. Why don't we just not do it, and make the orders phases much more pleasant? Treeburst155 out.

Sanok, you Herder of Halfsquad Hordes, one defending squad cannot reasonably be expected to suppress the fire of two full attacking squads. Therefore, the game limitation of a single target doesn't really matter because the defenders wouldn't have the weapons to suppress all the attackers anyway. The defender correctly gets overwhelmed. Your puny halfsquads, on the other hand, should not be able to overwhelm an equal defending force so consistently and as easily as they do. Attackers do not generally get overwhelming victories when they attack at 1:1 or worse. I'd bet the attacker usually gets his butt kicked at those odds. Your two halfsquads against one whole defending squad will get that victory EVERY time. Unrealistic and gamey. Treeburst155 out.

This is a great thing you have done! Extremes don't matter. Only the average score for the sides after MANY plays of the scenario by different pairs of players. By the time a scenario is played a dozen times by a dozen different pairs of players, I'd say balance has been fairly well established. Treeburst155 out.

NOW I see what you were trying to get across, Kingfish. You weren't arguing in favor of halfsquad hordes, just illustrating how they could be beaten without resorting to the tactic yourself. Hopefully Glider will be able to buy trenches, HMGs, and be on defense. There's nothing better than a non-gamey win over gamey tactics. Treeburst155 out.

Just the thought of it makes me laugh. "How did 3rd Squad B get so far from 3rd Squad A?. Oh, I see. I moved 2nd Squad A instead of 3rd Squad A last turn. So where is 2nd Squad B; and how come this squad isn't split? Oh, it's an HQ. Now where is 2nd Squad B? Oh no, 1st squad rejoined themselves! I know I left them far enough apart. I'll have to watch out for that. Now back to that 2nd Squad B....or was it 3rd Squad B? Alt-U Treeburst155 out.

Split them squads, Glider!! You must adapt to enemy tactics, gamey or not. War is hell...not to mention your orders phases. LOL!! Treeburst155 out.

I think the edge one gets by splitting squads is very significant. CM trenches are just formidable enough to beat the tactic. This means we probably don't need to split squads in trenches. I will anyway. Treeburst155 out.

In Kingfish's test, heavily outnumbered defenders defeated a horde of split squads. Why then can a defending SMG squad in woods not defeat a single split rifle squad? Because the defenders didn't have a trench to cause the cover imbalance necessary to defeat the split squad tactic. Treeburst155 out.

.....because the trenches effectively negate the unsupressed incoming fire. The trenches are what balance out the split squad hordes. A hail of gunfire against a CM trench is reduced to a very minor nuisance. Put the defenders in the same cover as the half-squads. Take away the MG 42, and two Russian squads. Try it again...whole platoon against split platoon. Note respective firepowers at the engagement range. Make sure your defenders do not have more than a 1.5 to 1 FP advantage. They will go down. Treeburst155 out.

I've done this before. I thought it was quite clever too. I only split a couple squads though. I wanted to use the LMGs for long-range suppression and conserve ammo. Doing this on a large scale....well, it just makes me shake my head in disappointment. I don't want to HAVE to split all my squads to have a chance. Heck, I might as well start splitting my squads at setup, and get used to it. Treeburst155 out.

Yes, Glider, good point. The split platoon would gain the upper hand. All things being equal....firepower, cover quality, experience, leader bonuses, etc...The unsplit platoon could even have a significant firepower advantage. Treeburst155 out.

When are half squads more effective than whole squads? In any situation where all else is equal. In fact, when all else is equal, the unsplit squad will lose even if it enjoys a significant firepower advantage. Treeburst155 out.

Kingfish, You simply employed the split squad tactic in a situation where it would not work. Any short range, limited visibility, heavy cover combat involving 1:1 will see the split squad win EVERY time. Combat in woods often happens this way. Also, your situation may be difficult for the Russians to win whether the squads are split or not. One heavily fortified platoon with HMG 42 and 50 meters of clear terrain in front of them would be a formidable job for a company, split or not. Remember that an entrenched MG42 has been the topic of a thread or two. They are VERY tough to put out of action. Your trenches are just helping to neutralize the unsupressed incoming fire. EDIT: Your test may be a good indicator that halfsquads do indeed take a local morale hit. Treeburst155 out.

Yes, but the question is whether or not halfsquads' morale degenerates under fire more rapidly than the whole squad. Determining this for certain would be difficult, just as determining fanaticism takes many turns of observation to be sure. I was just using fanatacism as an example of the testing problem. You're right though. To test for brittleness in halfsquads, fanaticism would have to be turned off. Treeburst155 out.

Half squads can probably withstand arty better because the Halfsquad Herder is able to spread his squads out. There may be a LOCAL morale factor that negates this advantage. However, based on our investigation of the other penalties for splitting squads, I would question whether there is any significant LOCAL morale hit applied to halfsquads. It's a difficult thing to determine...kinda like figuring out if a squad went fanatic or not. Treeburst155 out.

It's interesting to note that only Glider and I have run tests. I think it would be good if split squad proponents run some tests too. The unrealistic results will then be obvious to them. Perhaps the Herders of Half-Squad Hordes don't wish to face the truth? Treeburst155 out.

No-one, You are ignoring test results. 10 regulars against 10 regulars with comparable firepower should not result in the decimation of the unsplit squad EVERY time. In fact, if the whole squad is defending, I would think it more realistic that the ATTACKER needs to call in for help. A whole squad has all the support weapons a split squad has. Why should my stationary defenders need to call in the HMGs just because you sent a couple LMGs a few degrees off to the left. My whole squad has sufficient firepower to deal with it. Oh, that's right....they can't deal with it because they can only fire at one unit at a time. If I have a platoon that is losing a fight due to a superior enemy in numbers and/or firepower, I need to bring up some help. If I have a platoon that is losing a fight due to hordes of halfsquads with firepower totalling only 75% of mine, I have a gamey opponent. If the designer disabled fallback foxholes, you are being gamey by gaining them via split squads. The "big picture" is not worth seeing if it encourages unrealistic squad level combat. Treeburst155 out. [ January 28, 2005, 11:57 AM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

dieseltaylor, Split squads are not the best way to go in EVERY case; but they are best in MANY cases, high cover infantry fighting in particular. No-one, BTW, you do not need to split squads to come up with extra foxholes during setup. They gave us a feature for that. Hit Alt-F during setup to place extra holes. The scenario designer may disable this feature. In that case, splitting to gain extra holes is gamey. Treeburst155 out.

Who's gameplay? The halfsquad horders? Treeburst155 out.