walpurgis nacht

Thank you for the link Glider! The picture looked so much nicer in my Paint program This example is intended to represent one platoon of veteran rifleman split squads, defending an attacker’s approach lane. General considerations: -I restricted the force composition to a single platoon without support weapons. Ideally I would also have a pair of LMGs, and a pair of HMGs with LOS to this kill sack as well. This would give you 6-8 “layers” of concentrated fire. -The stopping power of the “A” half is much more significant than the “B”, because he has the LMG. -Notice how spread out everyone is relative to the HQ position. Only the 2 forward splits are even in command range. Veteran infantry reduce the burden of this disadvantage significantly, particularly when your main shooters are back at the safer distances of 150-300 meters. The less experienced player might have 3 full squads + HQ all stuffed into the larger woods patch. -You don’t want to open fire with all of your main shooters (the ones with the orange target lines) right away. You should expose only what you absolutely NEED to hold back your opponent. It takes time and experience to make the judgment as to what that exactly means, depending on the enemy thrust concentration. Just remember not to fire on something, just because you can. 1A: The A half has the LMG, and this fellow is one of your power shooters. He is 230 meters back from the kill sack, in a trench. Trenches are not spotted until the enemy closes within 200 meters, so he should be able to fire only giving off sound contacts. Also, this is well within range for the LMG to hit hard. 1B: In this case, the split is used as an ammo pouch for the “A” half. Notice he is safely, just behind the backside of the hill crest (no LOS forward). The trench was placed on the back edge of the hill crest for this reason. As soon as A starts to run low on ammo, the B will sneak up a few meters, timed to the last seconds of the turn (to make his window of vulnerability as small as possible), rejoining for the next turn, increasing your LMG for ammo. You can rinse and repeat this process throughout a game to reload multiple times. In this case, however, you will be spotted when you crest the hill, and you are too exposed to try and sneak away to safety repeatedly, so I would stay put after reconnecting once. 2A This should be the last of your main shooters to open fire. He is vulnerable to treebursts in his foxhole, and can easily be dealt with once spotted. Since he is in good concealment terrain, he should always operate shoot n scoot style. Time him to fire for the majority of the turn, with a “sneak” move to a new position attached for the last seconds of the turn.. This way, if all goes well, you will be hidden from the enemy, and moving to a new position at the beginning of the next turn. This is like hitting the reset button on his exposure, and often saves him from reactionary enemy HE. 3A: Main shooter. 3B: Since 3A is entrenched on flat open ground, sneaking the B half toward him to reload would only expose the trench and unit position, so he was the logical choice for a forward “reserve” unit. 3B doesn’t think of doing anything unless 2B becomes pinned or worse. This is your last man on the line, if he falls, you lose the terrain. 4A: 4A is close enough for concentrated enemy small arms to potentially give him a really hard time. Therefore, I would save him until I really needed him to halt the enemy advance. Notice his position in the woods patch. He cannot hit, or be hit by anything directly forward of him. The closer the enemy gets to the kill sack, the brighter blue his LOS beam becomes. 4B: Here is a way to make your ammo storage splits useful in terrain the offers good concealment. He is acting as a set of eyes, waiting to resupply 4A at any time. Likewise with 2A and 2B, at the beginning of the game I would have them at the front of the woods patch they are in now, not hiding, with small cover arcs to keep them from firing. This way they will help you spot enemy movements until the enemy gets close, at which point you sneak back to the foxholes they are in now. HQ: He has the binoculars so it’s a good idea to keep him up front and spotting until things start to get hot. Binoculars really help you get specific contacts, without the “?”. Once the enemy is close I would sneak him back from where he now stands. Also note his cover arc. I want him up, and facing that direction to spot things, but under NO circumstances do I want him to open fire. One other trick with HQs . . . . if you don’t get a solid ID on an enemy unit, try rotating your HQ to face the unit precisely . . . this makes a big difference (it’s a little tricky to setup his cover arc to keep him faced precisely where you want him to. I use the “rotate” command to define a clear, precise line, and then setup a tiny 180 degree cover arc, gauging the 90 degree point with the rotate movement order line.) In order, I would probably choose to open fire one at a time, this way: -HMG(s) -1A (has more ammo from split than 3A) -3A -LMG(s) (less ammo than A half splits) -4A -2A -2B -3B -Spiderman Why does any of this matter? Well picture the scene above with 4 rifle squads, all within command range around the forward wooded patches. 1st one fires, enemy tank goes to work, 2nd one fires, enemy mortar is on it, 3rd one fire and here comes the enemy arty!, your last squad opens fire, half pinned already from the lead being poured all around him . . . .finds himself outgunned by 3 enemy platoons, able to concentrate on just him = You lose. I hope this was helpful. [ February 01, 2005, 06:06 PM: Message edited by: Walpurgis Nacht ]

Anyone interested that might be able to host a few screen shots I could send via email? I can lay out a few nifty tactical things on splitting squads applied practically.

LOL. Well, if you are playing to win than I would recommend learning how to work with splits. If you are exclusively playing for historical purposes . . . well . . . I wouldn't play this game. Because you know, games are gamey and all Perhaps splitting squads doesn't reduce the effectiveness of the split *enough* (in terms of gameplay/balance) . . . .I merely suggest that is does have an impact. And that impact is relative to the squads experience level. I'm not just talking incremental increase/decrease due to experience, I'm talking exponential.

While this test has meaning, it doesn't accout for the real value in splitting squads-----which is that you alway have another fresh body available to lay down fire. I can tell you already your tests will confirm that split squads do indeed suffer a morale hit, which no one really contests to begin with. I have written about splitting squads/scouting extensively already so I've resisted an elaborate post about splitting squads here. But I will point out a few things. The advantage in splitting squads is largely determined by the experience level of the squad. With greens or conscripts it is almost inevitably not worth it, as the morale hit takes a much more significant toll. Regulars are ok, but when you're talking vets or crack I split everyone, almost no exception. Vet splits or better are able to operate out of command range and still be reasonably meaty. More importantly, they will recover more quickly when suppressed and/or routed. What this does is create an environment where you can stay spread out (avoiding concentrations of enemy fire), and always have a fresh body available to lay down fire. The key to using this advantage well is in overlapping your fire lanes many times over, so that, if the enemy breaks out some arty/HE/or hordes of smalls arms fire on a given unit, routing him, you have 3,4,5,10 other units in a sort of "reserve", available to lay down stopping fire as needed. The idea is, by the time the enemy has suppressed your initial squads and moved on to the others, your initial squads (being vets or better) have time to recover/rally to be used again. Now your enemy has exhausted his boom booms, and you still have a solid resistance setup for him to deal with. Now he's desperate and it's time for him to make mistakes :eek: There are 100s of other little things to mention but this seemed the most important.

:eek: (sharpens claws . . . )

The line has been cast, O' lord of the grapes. Lets see if wwb bites. </font>

edit.

edit [ January 10, 2005, 08:44 PM: Message edited by: Walpurgis Nacht ]

Kingfish, is _South of Vevi_ released somewhere for the public? I got a new computer so I lost the ROW files. Are there any ROW vets who want to do a pbem with me, attacking in _South of Vevi_? I attacked in the tourney so I'd like to try defending it against a good opponent.

Well he didn't surrender until turn 13, so I guess that was pretty good. Anyway, it is good hear there is still so much interest in the CM games. Recently I've branched out to try other PC games and after years of CM, nothing else seems to hold up.

Well according to Paco in the opponent finder forum, "It´s 01:47 AM here local time, and I must work tomo.. that´s it, today. Can´t continue -not at this pace-." So it would appear that you're not exactly a natural Ben Johnson yourself. Now back on topic. M10 or Hellcat as a cheap 76 substitute. Sure thing. Just keep in mind that the better your opponent, the less useful those open-tops are. Arty or mortars + open top vehicle = dead Flenser vehicle.

Here are some things to consider: -If you are not in a rush don't bunch up a horde of vehicles to move down the road all at once. Only if you really need to bother than do . . .because it's complicated to make it work well. -If you must bunch a group up and rush, go carefully through each vehicle and note the horsepower, top speed, and experience of each one. If you have 4 regular sherms and 1 vet, place the vet in front because he'll have shorter command delay due to experience, and so will take off more quickly. If you have 2 regular sherms and 2 regular stuarts, place the stuarts in front because experince is equal, but stuart has better horsepower so it will take off more quickly. Also consider since the stuart has better top speed than the sherm, it will tend to bump into the sherm if it is behind once the group picks up speed. -Next consider who has a radio and who doesn't. If you have a gun tractor and a PzIVH, the gun tractor has better horsepower and top speed, but no radio, so command delay will be intense with long, complicated movement orders. Often it is better to put the slower PzIVH in front for this reason. -you *can* move in 2 columns, side by side, if you must, but that gets really tricky and you have to be very careful placing each waypoint so you don't bump into each other. Views 1-5 sometimes blur the truth of the waypoint . . .so something that looks spaced out enough might actually not be . . .so check in view 6 . . . .check your waypoints at bends in the road extra carefully. As a general rule though avoid a double column. It's just too messy and the chanch you'll screw it up is high. -You might be inclined to stack a single column of tanks (for example), really close to one another thinking you're being efficient. Don't. Keep some space between vehicles and the group will always get off a faster start. No matter how careful you are, the numerical command delay given to you when you give movement orders will never be EXACTLY as it says . . . so you inevitably bump into each other at the start if you're bunched up too close. -The above are good rules to hold onto. But, consider that with a little tweaking of the pause command, and a few other little tricks you can often make any combination of vehicles move together effectively in any order.

Well of course I'm correct. You're just offended because it takes me 12 hours to play a 1000 point TCP game. Ahem . . . as if you had better things to do.

Everyone has their own style and there are many ways to approach a win in this game. That said I've always thought of the old Stalin, "quantity is a quality of it's own" concept as the way to go in CM. Forget about the 76 upgrade, it is next to worthless unless we're talking firefly calibur. The reinforced turret might help you shrug an extra hit at medium/long range, but it's nothing to get excited about. I go for the cheapest platoon.

In BB, that is true. AK is a different story. Area fire just in front of the pillbox with HE, 75mm-ish in size or bigger, and the splash from the HE will cause a random casualty. Once you have caused 3 casualties, the crew bails. It takes a healthy amount of HE and time to pull it off, but it works very well.

Hmmm. No offense but this is why you have to be really careful what you're reading here. Russian TH teams begin to receive RPGs in June '43. The RPG is likely the most effective TH weapon in the game. I'm not going to post some long thing about Tank Hunters again aside from that note. There are a lot of great posts on this if you run a search.

Wow. What a spectacular idea for a tourney! All infantry! This will, no doubt, seperate the men from the boy who use uber tanks Not sure if I can commit to this, but I'm curious regardless. When you say "infantry", do you mean the "infantry" setting (which includes all 'support' options, like AT guns)?

Well don’t expect anything special from my AARs. As with the first round of battles, I’m simply fulfilling the requirement to get a “pass”. It’s too complicated to explain all of the detail with words. Screen shots might help a bit, but I’m clueless with computers and I simply cannot imagine trying to really explain all the micro-detail (the things that really matter), with anything less than a short novel for each scenario. So I stick to general strategic philosophy in the AARs. I’m receiving random emails from all over asking questions about gameplay in these scenarios, and to see various turns for analysis. Combined with the posts above it seems there is a lot of interest, so I can highlight a few important considerations here. *** Wolf *** (Allied) Someone mentioned they were surprised so many allied players did well. I too, am surprised. Those 2 lbrs are no match for the kraut pzIIIs and IVs. So you really had to outplay the Axis attacker, and get a little lucky. The key to this one was knowing the desert, and especially dust and how it works. “Very dry” + “still” is the ultimate in cloudy LOS in the desert, as I’m sure you all noticed. I knew I would be facing pzIIIs and IVs, simply from the history of the battle. The tigers were deployed elsewhere, to fight the Americans at this time (thankfully). I ran a long series of tests with these tanks vs mine, in the specific desert conditions of this scenario before hand in preparation. If you were using “hunt” you probably didn’t do very well. I did not use this movement command for any reason. “fast” move only. With “hunt”, you stop when you achieve LOS to an enemy tank, and setup your aim to fire. If you are not rotated EXACTLY forward relative to the enemy tank position, you fire 1 shot, then rotate. Rotating kicks up dust and breaks your LOS, so you start moving again after every shot. Now consider that when the enemy tank you're targeting realizes he's being targeted, he begins to rotate, kicking up dust, and blocking your LOS . . . activating your "hunt" command as well. So, you don't have the greatest chance to even get 1 shot off to begin with. This makes coordinating flanking maneuvers virtually impossible, not to mention it resets your to hit % as if it were the first shot, every time. The Axis, with their superior armor quality, and one hit one kill policy of their 50mm/75mm guns, can afford this kind of piecemeal fighting . . .but not the Brits. There is one other key tactical “trick” I can pass along that deals with the dust issue. I always tried to work my armor maneuvers such that, they would arrive facing precisely forward (relative to enemy tank position). In other words, if I rushed a few tanks to attack his flank in coordination with a frontal attack, I would not just give them long flanking movement orders, let them arrive, turn and fight. I gave them the long flanking movement orders, and simply added one extra move every time . . .a short 3-5 meters “fast” move in the exact direction of the enemy tank. Make sense? It’s tough to describe. You have to be really carefully how you set the endpoints for your armor groupings when they move, so that none have their LOS blocked at that critical moment of arrival, by the other's dust trails. Between that and not getting hung up on stopping my tanks to fire (instead firing at super close range, on the move), I more or less ran circles around the attacker. I think I only lost 1 tank, and much to my frustration I managed to immobilize another by clipping my own mines! Lucky for me the attacker generally sat still with his armor, giving me the edge. I also have to say I got pretty lucky in addition to all of this. I’ve been playing CM with Londoner for years, and he is a damn good opponent. *** Honor *** (Axis) When I saw this map/setup/conditions I was completely annoyed. No chance for Axis on this one against a solid attacker. Give me the Allies, take away all of my armor, and I’d still run the Axis off the map. In light of what appeared a hopeless situation to me, I took some hard risks that had an incredible payoff. The general strategy was to lock down my right flank, and actually attack him on my left flank. And so, I used the roadblocks, mines, and wire on the right flank. Scattered trees + wire acts as a roadblock, even to fully tracked vehicles like tanks, in CMAK (this was not the case in BB). So I was able to construct one long, continuous roadblock, which, in concert with the mines, comfortably locked out all of his armor on my right flank. This allowed me to concentrate all of my armor on the left flank, where I was attacking. Since on my right flank there was only one decent position to setup a defense line (along the road), my strategy there was to hold that line stonewall for as long as absolutely possible. Thus my best troops, in the highest concentration, were there. Also all of my trps went on this flank, since there wasn’t going to be any armor around to support the troops. The attacker hit this flank hard (5 sherms, a few scout cars, 6-7 + platoons of infantry), but walked right into my trps, which ripped him apart. His scouting process was far too concentrated, and he paid a heavy toll for that. Schreks got 2 of his sherms, 2 of my tank hunters which got behind his lines and came around behind him got another 2 sherms, and the last died from a 75mm IG HC round. He never once got any HE on my boys from those sherms. Arty took out his scout cars, and caused massive casualties (I used every drop of arty HE on this flank). Even after all of that, my right flank line finally broke down towards the very end of the game from his overwhelming infantry numbers. Lucky me not in time to take any flags. His main thrust, where he committed a modest force at the start, and from what I can tell all of his reserves (basically every other AVF he had, outside the 5 sherms + 2 scout cars he hit my right flank with ), came just left of center. Not sure why he chose this path. I can’t think of any time in any CM game I’ve played, where attacking up the middle was a good idea (at least until the flanks are secure . . .which doesn’t make “the center”, the center anymore anyway). I spent the first 20 turns rushing units left to expand my line across the map, and then prodding forward in “attack” mode. I had all of my armor rush this flank as well, in support, along with a few towed AT guns, most of my support MGs, and my mortars. Every defender should have expanded out on the left flank. If not in force then just scouts to get a set of “eyes” over there. You don’t want him to get around that flank, without at least knowing and having a contingency plan to deal with it. If I were attacking, that flank is where I would have intuitively chosen to push the hardest. I thought I should start in attack mode on this flank first, to keep him from picking up any easy ground. Then use a fallback defense to soak up his superior numbers. He in essence was hitting my weaker side the hardest, but I had virtually all of my armor concentrated there to make up for it. So it all came down to the armor war. Since he was foolishly pushing up the center I had all kinds of flanking fire opportunities. The Jpanzer was a key tool. This fellow, hull down, is practically invulnerable from the front, even from the American 76mm. 76mm tungsten can pierce it theoretically, but I’m not sure if he had any, and the chance to penetrate is extremely low regardless. In AK, shell size matters a great deal more than in BB, so even if tungsten penetrates it doesn’t have the punching power to knock out a tank nearly as well as the regular 76mm AP shell. As a side note in “wolf”, this is why the 2lber sucks so bad vs the pzIIIs and IVs. The penetration value is sufficient to penetrate repeatedly, but due to the small shell size, the panzers shrug off the majority of penetrations. Anyway, the attacker’s armor was decimated. Jpanzer lead a few stugs attacking/defending from the road. Most of my other armor was off by the wheatfield moving in for flank shots on the road. I can’t explain every armor kill and how, but there are a few little things to mention. M10s have one big weakness . . . the open top. They are vulnerable to arty and on-board mortars. I took out a few with mortars. The AT guns I towed out on my left flank got multiple kills on different turns, save one which was randomly hit with arty before it fired. I was shocked by this. It’s so easy to kill discovered AT guns when LOS is restricted to 200 meters. You simply move your armor exactly 201 meters away from it and area target HE. You can also destroy bunkers (in AK) this way. The splash from the HE will cause a random casualty in the bunker, and once you cause 3 casualties the bunker crew bails (takes time and a healthy supply of HE). Lucky for me Larsen didn’t seem to know this. Other than that the only thing to say is that it’s a mistake for the defender to sit still too long with your armor in a situation like this. A good allied attacker can better setup the necessary flanking maneuvers if you just sit still. I kept everyone moving and it worked like a charm. By the time Larsen quit about halfway through the game (very lame), the majority of his armor was already down, and I had not lost a single tank. When Boris Balaban picked up the attack in his place, he did the right thing and reorganized his armor to flank me. I lost a few tanks in the final armor duels but it was too little too late. I had already established a decisive edge in numbers. Boris did a great job with what he had left though. What is most revealing about the Allied advantage in this scenario is that, even though I was able to effectively use virtually every HE shell the Axis had (every tank shell, arty barrage, AT gun HE, pillbox HE, and on-board mortars), things were still just on the edge of total collapse for my defense as the final turns wound down. *** Methode *** (Axis) I abandoned the forward flag from the start except for one sharpshooter. He snuck down into the brush right along the water. . . .an extremely unlikely spot for the attacker to scout, giving me an almost perfect LOS into his backfield (I saw every move he made back there). If you check the terrain in that area very carefully, you will notice that there are tiny little areas where the different terrain patches connect (no little open ground gaps in between). That allows for a unit as stealthy as a sharpshooter to sneak around unnoticed, almost at will, so long as enemy units are not too close. So, as the game was nearing the end, my sharpy snuck back up toward the flag with the intention to “tie” it, without the attacker even knowing (using sharpy stealth, and sneaking him just close enough to tie it). Turns out, since I won the armor war, I timed a move with my Jpanther to rush down the road and get within the flag radius the very last few seconds of the game (timed to the very last seconds, so any infantry he had there wouldn’t even have time to turn, much less toss a grenade). So I ended up taking this flag instead of just the tie (armor trumps infantry, depending on the infantry numbers at the flag, in terms of “control”). I did this in “honor” also . . .taking back a few of the forward flags, on the last seconds of the game. Gamey as hell but I was playing to win. Also, I could see this attack included assault boats from the very start. With only 1 obvious, wired + mined route for the attacker it was not difficult to deduce that. I used a split squad to sneak down to his assault boats after he was finished with them (on the coast), and took out all 8 of them. Again kind of gamey but they count as vehicle kills in terms of points. My Jpanther took out 2 of his sherms from the default position. 3 Sherms made it across the bridge. He then went on to attempt to coordinate a flanking attack on my Jpanther with those remaining Sherms. He was doing it right, so I had to be aggressive with the Jpanther . . .using the road to rush forward into positions to catch his remaining tanks, 1 at a time. I caught 2 of his remaining Sherms this way. My panzerschrek took out the 3rd. The attacker pushed right up the middle “vines” patch with his infantry. He bunched everyone up and rushed this central area (again, bad idea to attack the center without securing flanks). I knew he was in the trees above the "vines" patch there, but I did not suspect for one moment he would push them right down the middle, especially with the speed and concentration of troops he chose. I had MG flanking fire from multiple directions in place working overwatch of this area. Unlike rifles and smgs, MGs have a 15-20m diameter area of effect, so when the attacker bunched up his troops on the rush, he multiplied the effect of my firepower dramatically . . . and since he was only in “vines” terrain it dropped all of his squads pretty much instantly. Within a few turns I had moved enough firepower into position to finish him off in this bottleneck. With his armor down, this more or less ended the game. I hope this was helpful, WN [ October 14, 2004, 12:08 AM: Message edited by: Walpurgis Nacht ]

GaJ. Perfectly good question to elaborate on. I will be happy to do so a little later on when I can find a window of time. I wish I had the computer skills to take screen shots and post them up here. And draw on them with nifty little arrows to point things out. It would save a lot of words . . . .which are of very limited value when trying to describe CM details! Will post a reply soon.

I completely agree. One important thing however . . . the composer, jwxspoon, made a last minute aesthetic change from "mid-day" to "dawn", which due to the fog settings, changed the LOS from infinite to 200 meters. This was not his intention and I think he was really bummed out when he realized (too late). We all know Jeff is one of the very best designers so I'm over it! I still think it would be an attack friendly scenario, but with unrestricted LOS you could at least build mutually supporting cells for your defense. [ October 11, 2004, 05:50 PM: Message edited by: Walpurgis Nacht ]

Tim more or less has the philosophy, and well said, above. However, I don't get hung up on using "real, historical" tactics. Mainly because I'm not an expert on them. But I am an expert on CM game play There are so many considerations, it is often difficult to describe what *exactly* to do (if only I were as gifted with the english language as our Jason), because every little terrain detail has a significant impact on how you want to approach defending. If you are defending a flat, open map, fallback defense obviously will not work. . . and you shouldn't need it! Also, if you have green or conscript troops, forget it. Regs will work but preferably vets or better for this job. You want your boys to be able to shake off a few small arms bursts while on the move. In terms of QB maps, medium settings or thicker terrain is perfect for the fallback defense. First thing to do is create your "alamo" line. This is your final line. If it breaks, you lose. This is where you setup all of your trenches, main AT guns, HMGs, and other heavy weapons for support. Also setup all of your infantry on this line, just to start. Since we're talking about a fallback defense I won't address, in any detail, how to setup this line specifically. But one tip to counter the mistakes I often see is be damn sure you are setting up mutually supporting cells here . . .so that if your opponent attacks left, your central line has flanking fire for him. If your opponent attacks center, left and right flanking fire for him. And if he goes right, your center has flanking fire in support. Make sense? The LAST units you open up with on this line are your squads right in front of the attack. . the very last. You do not want him to locate your positions directly in front of his attack because once he locates them, he can smother them with arty and other HE. Use flanking MG fire until he finally pushes infantry through to your squads, who then in turn rip him apart. OK, so once your "alamo" line is totally set, it's time to tear it all apart. But, you have to remember your “alamo” line positions. You’re not rushing your heavies forward like HMGs, and AT guns, so naturally they stay put. You’re rushing squads, and mobile AT weapons like schreks, and tank hunters. A typical example might be, in a 3 squad platoon, to rush 2 squads + HQ forward, leaving 1 back. Split this last squad and set him up on your “alamo” line in positions so that the foxholes act as markers for your other squads later, when they fallback. Make sense? Do this with all of your squads, using your split squad reserves to mark your alamo line with foxholes. Now this becomes difficult to explain, because you really have to know how cover/terrain works to be successful. Observe the forward areas of your defense. What forward terrain can you rush to and not be spotted by the attacker? What forward terrain can you rush into, that will allow you to escape out the back safely when the time comes? You want to rush as far forward as you possibly can, while remaining unseen. You want to be careful though, if you rush too far forward you might well defeat the whole purpose by running into enemy troops! Once you locate these forward positions, you naturally stack your infantry on the forward part of your setup zone, ready to rush ahead. Make sure you hit hotkey “d” to take away their foxholes, so your opponent does not spot them and realize what you’re up to. Turn 1, rush everyone forward to their positions. Make sure you do NOT hide your squads. Keep them up, with teensy cover arcs so they can see. They will not be spotted, even if not hiding, until your opponent gets so close that you want to open fire anyway. Remember Saturday morning cartoon philosophy from the 80s . . .”knowing is the half the battle!” Now, the idea here is delay tactics. When you setup one badass line only, it allows the attacker to bring his superior firepower up to your line, and he in turn will crush you with it. Once you trigger a particular ambush, your advantage as the defender is used up. So the idea is, ambush-fallback, ambush-fallback, etc. Every time you fallback and reset, you regain the initiative. Now there are some exceptions to this. If you notice that his main force is on the other flank of the map (away from a particular ambush of yours), you might well want to hang tight there and fight it out a bit more. There is no reason to go and fallback from nothing more than a thin recon screen. You might also have a foolish attacker that does nothing in the way of recon on the flank he doesn't intend to attack. Even better! Sit tight for a good long while to make absolutely sure he has nothing in front of you, and then push forward, further into his backfield, come around and hit his attack from behind. Typically you'll catch his slower moving, expensive support weapons like mortars, etc. Another trick, the “double-ambush”, is that you can wax his split squad in ambush once, then split one of your 2 squads (the one he probably now sees, whose cover arc he just tripped), and fast move him back, as if retreating. Do it in a way that the attacker is sure to see you (“fast” move is the easiest method of travel for your opponent to see while you’re in cover . . it gives you away the most). You might get lucky then and inspire him to rush multiple squads forward to “catch you”, while 1 squad + 1 split squad are still waiting in ambush. It’s a very nasty ouchy for the attacker should you succeed. LMGs are a great way to cover the fallback process. You ideally want to find positions for them in the middle ground . . .say 150-250meters behind your forward ambush points, so he can help keep the attacker’s infantry busy for those precious few seconds your boys are trying to get the hell out of there. Armor is so precious because it is mobile. And thus, also perfect to support ambush fallbacks, or in the case that the attacker’s main force is pushing elsewhere, to help your forward ambush infantry stay and fight for some turns. But be careful in how you use it before your ambush is triggered. It’s better to keep him just out of sight, but ready to pounce, until your ambush has been tripped. You don’t want to scare the attacker into being extremely conservative with his movement until you’ve already drawn first blood. Consider the dangers of the fallback defense. What attacker leads with tanks? Answer:only those that are clueless. So, this forward ambush rush of yours should have at least 1 solid turn before he can get his armor on top of you, allowing you to crush and run in plenty of time. The same goes for mortars and arty. Sometimes, particularly with the nasty arty, you might well want to keep enough of your infantry forward to encourage him to use it. Remember you WANT him to use it then as opposed to having hordes of it left for your “alamo” line. A good trick with these suicide squads is to split them all . . .to give the appearance that your strength is greater than it is . . . encouraging him think the arty expenditure is worth it. Sometimes you can setup 3,4, or more layered belts of defense this way. Perhaps it is because I’ve played so much CM . . .but it has been a very long time since any attacker has even come close to my “alamo” line by the end of the game, using this method. It’s an extremely time consuming pain in the ass for the attacker. Think as though you’re that attacker for a minute. What do you do when your split squad is waxed in an ambush? You bring up more men and firepower, positioning it to tear the patch of terrain apart. That takes time. So every time you can setup a new ambush, you are buying yourself more and more time. Finally the attacker, seeing his time slipping away, will start to make terrible mistakes in the name of haste. It happens every time. This will make it much easier to take out his armor now that he’s on the fast track. And so your boys continue to fallback, until they reach their final positions on the "alamo" line. The closer the attacker gets to that "alamo" line, the harder it will become as they start to find themselves in LOS of your heavy support weapons. As I said, I am nothing but a dogged amatuer when it comes to historical tactics, but from my reading this falls very much in line with Soviet defensive tactics. The Russians always kept their best firepower and biggest boom booms on the final line, so as the German attack forces begin to tire, their attack become more and more difficult in addition to that exhaustion because the firepower they face increases the closer they get to the Russian's main line. As I said before it is so difficult to explain every detail. Just knowing where are the best positions in that “woods” patch, to ambush from, is a thesis in and of itself. It is my hope that the above generalizations will be useful enough to help get anyone started. If someone has a specific question about any of this, I’m happy to elaborate. [ October 11, 2004, 05:04 PM: Message edited by: Walpurgis Nacht ]

Wow, there's so much bad advice above I can't even imagine where to start. Ignore everything, 1st off. A good layered defense, or what I call "fallback" defense is the best possible defense in this game. It's too early and I'm randomly awake so can't write a thesis on this just now. will return too it in a few hours.

Ouch. Actually Jason disappeared on Broken about 2 weeks ago. Since, in my game with Jason he up and quit about 15 turns in, I'm inclined to suppose he's running away from this one as well. Otherwise, I hope he's doing alright.

Faust here, so I know CMHQ as I happen to live there Yes, it's great, but I hardly think it's known by everyone around here . . .or even very many. Anyway, it might be nice to have an official BF chat room that everyone knows about.