Whats a good defensive stratedgy?

[Gen. J-sun]

I was wondering how defense was played by everyone I usually wait 'till the enemy was virtually on top of me untill letting if everything this works well inflicting massive casualties I usually take out 60-80% of my enemies then... ARTILLERY :eek: RAINS DOWN ON MY GUYS RENDERING THEM USELESS :mad: and I end up with a strategic loss because my guys end up running off the map :mad:

[Kobal2]

Waiting till they're point blank to shoot is good, but you can send arty before that. If the area around your defense point is wide open space, you can either shell'em if they try to leg it across the open space, or blow away the few covers.

If there's loads of attack routes, put up a few listening posts (lone half squads, tank hunters, snipers...) to vaguely know where his troops are, and shell away. Even if you don't do massive casualties, you'll slow him down by forcing his guys to crawl away from the shelling/find another route, and blow his morale.

If you more or less know (or believe you know )where your opponent is going to advance, one thing you can do is have your FOs get a LOS on that route, and target arty there. Every time the countdown reaches 1 minute, retarget arty, close enough to have the countdown set back 1 or 2 minutes only. This way, you'll have an arty strike ready to fall any minute, at the first ennemy sighting, even if your arty unit takes 8 minutes to be allowed by Battalion/Corps/Army staff.

If the arty falling down on your guys is the ennemy's...not much you can do about it , besides buying trenches for your defense (arty doesn't do much to entrenched inf.) if you can.

You can also try and spread out your forces more, so that not *all* your army can be blown by one good arty strike. Maintaining a reserve force to be launched wherever it's needed the most/where the ennemy has broken the line of defense works too.

[Gen. J-sun]

wow (big eyes) thnx for the advice in your post I'll try putting that into affect A.S.A.P however I can't buy trenches I'm using CMBO only

[campsy88]

a good defensive position is 2 have ur best troops on the flanks, if u loose the flanks ur most likely 2 loose the battle.

[Other Means]

keep MG's at the back of the map, keyholed so they can only see a portion of the ground. these force the enemy to go through trees.

when the enemy attack is compressed in the trees, drop arty on them.

cover lines of approach with AT guns. have them cover each other & be hidden from the front. your aim is to have the infantry stripped from the armour by the time the AFV's pass your guns. you also want to hit the AFV's from one side so that they turn to face the guns, then hit them from the other side. this or get them from both at once.

your infantry should be out at the front but should not be in contact with the enemy infantry by the time you hit the enemy with arty.

basically, you want to slow the advance with MG's & arty. decimate the infantry first, then destroy the tanks that try to support them, then use your infantry after this to kill them all.

use 70% of your infantry as a line to stop him getting through, use the rest as a mobile reserve. if you can safely get a body of infantry behind his use it to get his high firepower support.

[Tank Ace]

if german, and in a vilage, use SMG sqds, and 81mm sptr, lure enemy close, then open up with all u got.

[Slappy]

Defending is tougher in CMBO than the other versions. MGs are less effective, FOW is weaker and infantry stronger. This means that classic BB/AK (and real world) strategies won't work as well as they should. For BB/AK I would advise you to open up with MGs at 400m to pin and disrupt the advance while you remain totally hidden. In CMBO, a MG at 400m won't even slow down an infantry advance, but they'll pinpoint the firer within 60sec.

If you're defenders are getting plastered with artillery, try to move them around some more and defend less from fixed foxholes. When you open up to do the killing, hold position and fire for only 1-2 turns, then get away. Leave an MG or two to cover your retreat or call in some artillery of your own, or some smoke to break contact. You won't do as much killing, but you'll live to play the same trick again. If you split your squads in setup, each half will make a foxhole, giving you nearly double the foxholes and double the fighting positions. For bonus points, TRP your own anbush positions so that when his infantry regroups and storms the now empty position you can drop 105mm on them.

[Beta1]

yeah defending in CMBO is tougher but on the bright side arty is far more responsive.

I tend to try and stop the main enemy attack with infantry then destroy it using artillery. Buy TRPs and put them on likely attack routes ahead of defensive positions with covered withdrawal sites to second line defenses. Stop the enemy attack and hit him with a turn or two of decent caliber arty (100mm+, ideally 150mm+) and withdraw behind the barrage. Setup again and repeat. Direct fire HE from on map guns can break up formations well too, especially the 105/150mm type. Use on map mortar batteries firing indirect to disrupt platoons approaching your lines. Setup keyhole AT guns to positions you expect support to appear in, equally setup HE throwers to target buildings that are likley to be observation posts. Dug in flamethrowers can really cause suprises, espeically on reverse slopes/areas with limited LOS

If you want to be really nasty add mines to likely positions that infantry will move to under fire.

[Royal_Dragoon_Guard]

I love defending in CMBO. Even managed some great victories (modest as usual), defending with airborne troops against enemy forces that are armour/mechanized/mixed. Don't group your forces too closely, especially the squaddies, artillery could wipe them in a few salvoes. Use cover for ambushes, try putting AT teams ahead to screen your forces and act as recon too. Keep them in cover - they are expendable! Give AT guns/tanks good fields of fire,or they might get ambushed! Keep artillery observers hidden but with a good LOS to all possible attack routes. Try and keep HQ's close to their infantry. Support AT guns with mg's. Support infantry with an armoured vehicle of some sort, pick a cheap tank destroyer.

Most important keep a small reserve to act as "fire brigade" its what the Germans did! Mutual fire support is very important too, don't isolate units (except expendable bazooka teams).