New Battle Type: Breach

[Andrew H.]

After reading all of the fascine/funnies/ engineering threads, it occurred to me that there is a relatively simple way that BTS could permit engineering type battles without doing a bunch of new coding. That is, they could make a new battle type called, say, Breach. The defender in such a battle would get a bunch of points to spend, most of which would have to be spent on fortifications. The attacker would be wise to spend his points on, say, engineers. There should probably be other limits on the attacker's force selection, although I'm not sure what, precisely. I gave this proposal its own thread because it is essentially independent from proposals to change how the engineering battle is modeled or add additional equipment. Although of course if flail tanks or mine-clearing pachyderms were added to CM, they would also have an important role in the Breach-type battle.

I have some rough ideas about how force selection in a Breach might look, but I would hope that people on the board could refine them further.

Force balance

I suspect that everyone who has CM toyed, early on, with defending against an attack by purchasing lots of wire and mines, only to realize, relatively quickly, that it never makes sense to defend by setting up extensive belts of mine and wire. They're just too expensive. They may or may not be overpriced for regular battles, but they're certainly overpriced if you want to set up extensive belts of fortifications.

So the easy way around this is to have a different force balance for Breaches. Maybe the attacker and the defender get an equal number of points, but the defender has to spend 2/3 of his points on fortifications (perhaps with the further requirement that 1/2 of the fortifications be unmanned (i.e., mines or wire or AT ditches). Maybe the defender should even get 1.5 times the attacker's force.

Victory Locations/setup

It seems to me that the best VL/setup scenario would be a cross between a probe and an assault. That is, the defender would have a fairly deep setup, like an assault, but there would be a lot of flags spread across the map, like in a probe. This would mean that the defender would be spread thinly, and would have to rely on the fortifications to slow down the attacker long enough for the defender's other infantry units to come over and try to repel the attackers. The defender will have to start out with his infantry units spread out, though, so that he can cover all of his fortifications -- it would be easy for engineers to breach a minefield if no one is shooting at them. Considering that the defenders will have spent 75% of their points on fortifications, they should not permit them to be breached uncontested.

New engineering stuff

While this proposal doesn't require any additional units (or additional capabilities for current units), it's certainly not incompatible with new units. Flail tanks could be easily incorporated into the unit selection, as could wire-cutting engineers or infantry. Different kinds of roadblocks, pillboxes, trenches, foxholes, etc. would also add variety. Of course, if there were different terrain types, the defender might base his defense around them, which might encourage the use of specialized vehicles to cross the obstacles (or at least leave burning fascines as cover for advancing infantry).

Additional victory conditions could be incorporated as well, especially things like exit conditions. Particularly if, in SL style, what had to be exited was, say, a convoy.

But none of these new units or victory conditions would be required to add a Breach type battle.

Thoughts?

[Michael Dorosh]

Sounds good. There were some good comments towards the end of the other thread as well. I don't have anything to add to the discussion, but like what I am seeing.

[Andreas]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Sounds good. There were some good comments towards the end of the other thread as well. I don't have anything to add to the discussion, but like what I am seeing.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

He's a uniform grog, but anyway, what he said basically. Except for the exit conditions. I hate exit conditions...

[Rifle1860]

A great new view on a very flammable topic

Over

[Chad Harrison]

if this is the place to vote for such a new battle type, then consider one vote from me! this would give those lonely engineers a little more to do.

[Brian Rock]

Very interesting idea. I think there are plenty of cases on the east front that would be better represented by a "breach" operation than by any of the current options.

[Michael Dorosh]

One can argue for a number of specialized scenario types:

a) glider/parachute landings

amphibious assault

etc.

It does make me wonder why BTS poohpoohs these types of battles, yet included the half-baked assault boats. The boats do not match any of the known German types (kleine flossack, Grosse flossack, etc.) (sp? been awhile since I read my Crescendo of Doom rules) and the AI can't use them.

I've always thought it was solid evidence that BTS will at some point expand to include this stuff - and Steve's recent comments in the last week reveal that they do have an interest in, at the least, engineering, its just a matter of programming time, etc.

Andrew, if you keep spouting well thought out ideas, you just might get them to answer our wishes a little sooner. Keep up the good work.