Quantity defence beats Quality attack?

[John Kettler]

Brycie35,

For starters, since I've never come across you before, welcome aboard! It is possible to advance and win with a force of Greens and Conscripts, for I did it leading my team (we subdivided our combat units and fought them as individual commands) in my very first CMBB fight at the Sneak Preview of the Beta. This was a canned scenario involving an early war Russian attack on German defenders. It would've been brutally difficult to pull off in more open country, but the patchwork of small copses, fields and brush allowed me to move up by stages, taking lumps, but having the space and time to get my men back into shape, eventually crushing the German defense so thoroughly that I was able to pass armor clear through the defenders fixed by frontal and flank infantry attack. Even with whopping command delays and only weak prep fire for fire support, I still demolished the Germans.

Pay careful attention to JasonC, for he is the master of CM theory and is the author of the vital Russian Training Exercise Scenarios. These progressively teach you the peculiar skills necessary to effectively operate the Russians in CMBB.

http://www.blowtorchscenarios.com/

Regards,

John Kettler

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[JoMac]

Brycie35,

If interested, I would like to continue talking about this discussion further by email. Maybe setup some Attack/Defense Company size engagements, and using House Rules that a couple of players have worked on. My email is in profile, just have the title Re: " Combat Mission."

Thanx

Joe

[ June 08, 2008, 05:37 AM: Message edited by: JoMc67 ]

[Joachim]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Joachim - on the "run out of ammo, regardless of restriction" point - at 1 to 3 odds yes, at 3 to 2 odds no.

Jason, nowhere did I state "regardless of restriction".

If you state that a defender does not stand a chance to run the attacker low on ammo when the defender is outnumbered 3:1 - then yes, it has to be a very bad attacker to run low on ammo with odds like that. Defense should run out of ammo (or die) quickly with these odds, especially ranged weapons able to fire back - no matter how good the defender is if the attacker is somewhat competent.

In general, player skills on both sides do influence the odds necessary whether somebody runs low on ammo - just like the odds necessary to win (Given an "average" single CMBB/AK battle).

[JoMac]

Even with odds of 3 to 1, attacks were repeadidly repulsed with good defensive positions. However, in Combat Mission that would most likely not be the case.

[Bigduke6]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Big Duke - the defender can always reconfigure. The illusion that a fast enough attack can beat the defenders to their own chosen point of contact is just that, an illusion. Only dumb set ups are remotely susceptible to it. The usual thing, instead, is the fast attack aims for scouted weaknesses which are there deliberately. The defender can practically drive both sides. A main advantage of a careful, plan-driven vs. fast, recon-pulled attack, is the attacker decides where the former occurs. The defender decides where the second occurs, the attacker's subjective desires in the matter notwithstanding.

Jason,

My point about pace is far from a be-all end-all, but that said, in my opinion a slow pace of attack can at times aid the defender. Therefore, the attacker needs to bear the possibility in mind.

Certainly, if the defender is holding relatively open terrain, has to place his force on front slope, has open flanks, is generally observation and so on, then the defender is going to have alot more trouble reconfiguring than if he's on the reverse slope, has cover, has tied down flanks etc.

Sure the second is more desirable for the defender, but terrain and tactical situation won't always accomodate. And of course the more the defender is stuck in the ground he picked, the more effective a slow and steady approach will take that defender apart.

In that sense, a fast enough attack will indeed - in some cases anyway - get more force to the point of contact than a slow and steady attack. It's simply a question of time and distance.

The tactical counter is obvious: A smart attacker will do his level best to set up covering fires and flank forces so that, when contact comes, he can not only win the contact, but prevent the defender from reinforcing the point of contact.

Am I saying maneuver and speed and pace is the way to go with an attack? Of course not, far from it.

I am saying that, at least in some cases, an attack can indeed be too deliberate. Pace counts, on either side, in direct proportion that it builds up firepower at the point of contact.

Whether or not pace, a little or alot, is worth the risk of hitting an ambush is a judgement call, a decision the attacking commander is paid to make.

I will go even further and say that, personally, if I have to choose, I will almost always err towards the side of deliberation rather than the side of pace when conducting an attack, even though I'm well aware the other guy will be reacting to me.

But that said, I have found my defenses are more effective if they are prepared to refocus firepower on the attack wherever it comes, and my attacks are more effective if I assume and am prepared for a defender wanting to do the same thing to me. FWIW, YMMV.

All that I am arguing, essentially, is that a deliberate attack that intends to eat into the defence, with the tacit assumption that the defenders will be supine, and that the attacker has all the time he wishes to use, risks counters by a defender aware how those attacks go and prepared to deal with them, usually by picking them apart bit by bit.

If the defender is on the ball, chances are the defender will reconfigure to handle the attack. If the defender is particularly on the ball, he will if at all possible build his defence from the get-go first to gauge the attack, and then flex to contain and destroy it. In other words, in an ideal world, big reserve not small.

Final point, this emphatically is not manuever for maneuver's sake. Rather, this an effort to get as much firepower as possible where the defender needs it, rather than where the attacker wants it.

[JasonC]

"with the tacit assumption that the defenders will be supine"

There is your error. There is no such assumption in deliberate attack methods.

"and that the attacker has all the time he wishes to use"

Again a strawman. It is sufficient that the time available is more than enough to burn through available ammo and cover required distances, at a slow, deliberate pace. The speed of the defender's reaction, on the other hand, is quite irrelevant.

"risks counters by a defender aware how those attacks go"

There aren't any. That is the whole point of deliberate attack methods. They do not bet on the defense being this way or that, or on its being supine, or on its adapting in one certain way. They simply do not care what the defender tries in response.

Not that the deliberate attack does the same thing whatever the defender does - though there is actually quite a bit of that. But the real point is a deliberate attack has a counter in mind and ready on short notice, for every useful counter in the defender's arsenal. It doesn't bother having counters to things defenders do indeed try, that aren't actually effective, because they are not needed.

Deliberate attack methods are not seeking a specific weakness of the defense, beyond its inferior odds and the attacker's initiative stemming from them. They are all about shutting down counters and being insensitive to them. Variance is systematically removed from the engagement.

Does this mean a deliberate attack always succeeds? No. It can lose to sheer enemy luck in the armor war, or to superior small unit placement and tactical match up sequencing, can make mistakes, etc. But the defense has to get lucky somewhere or the attacker has to screw up. The defense just seeing it coming is not a counter. It doesn't even help, really, and it is par for the course.

Anyway. Apparently the whole principle involved is simply not understood, it is too far from the dynamic move and counter headfaking of modern maneuver driven ideas. If you want to understand deliberate attack methods, play Steinitz and Nimzovitch chess games between masters, 1880s to 1930s or so, and read the chapter on the principle of blockade in Nimzovitch's "My System".

[Joachim]

As somebody who doesn't give a **** on theory, whether attritionist or maneuver, I still support BD6.

In my last 3 defensive battles (BD6 knows them) the attackers were veteran above average players.

The first allowed me time to move my reserves in after he had penetrated my only defensive line. It was his Schwerpunkt, but I could only muster a weak reserve plt to support the local half plt. 2.x plts vs 1.5 plts after arrival of reinforcements. Short slaughter resulting in 0:1.25 remaining plts. Pressing the attack, spreading out would have overrun my local half plt and then rolled up the line regardless of my reserve plt.

Next attacker allowed a teammate to disengage from the enemy, then I took over and still had enough time to shift the bulk of the force before the attacker closed in again. 20:10 in tanks, 1.5:1 in inf, 30+ HTs on top. The counterattack with all 10 tanks hit a weak part of the enemy with lopsided results. The attacker had to split forces - or ignore valuable terrain. Superior intelligence that he actually did split his forces allowed me to pick the place.

The last battle was decided by continuous ambushes. Carefully selected keyholed reverse slope positions allowed for flanking shots and 1:1 short range firefights with the defender firing first. Carefully selected inf ambush positions won the recce battle. The attacker run out of tank HE and HT MG ammo. But my big inf losses were not from direct HE at my prepared positions but from an inf firefight in woods and later in my counterattack - which was performed with less armor, but superior intel. The enemy did not rush in. It was a slow, deliberate attack that expected ambushes right from the start. No big mistakes of the attacker.

So my case is that better intel wins. Intel allows for quick maneuvers. Intel allows for picking ambush sites. If the attacker is able to blind the defender - or hide parts of his force - he has some aces up his sleeve. If the defender knows the attacking force, the defender has the trumps as he can choose time and place (which is effectively Clausewitz' statement regarding the defender having the initiative).

If the attackers pace allows the defender to capitalize on his intel advantage by maneuvering his forces to weak spots of the attacker, the defender can achieve local odds, local lopsided losses and thus stall the offensive.

Chess is not comparable to CM. Chess has a perfect knowledge of the enemy's forces. Good players always know who has the initiative. It has limited room for maneuver - the "map" is rather small for the assembled forces. No secret concentration of forces.

Playing with intel is really limited in QBs and/or on rather open or small maps. There we're much closer to chess.

[Vark]

So if intel is the trump card who benefits the most from borg spotting. The defender who can position an all seeing forward screen of support units, or the attacker who can neutralise the defender if his forward screen is in spotting range. Again I refer to my previous query, who benefits the most from these understandable compromises in the development of this game, the attacker or the defender? In this I support Joachim, CMBB is a great game but a poor simulation of war so looking at real world force ratios/tactics is somewhat misleading, especially in the interminable attritionist maneuver saga.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Vark:

So if intel is the trump card who benefits the most from borg spotting. The defender who can position an all seeing forward screen of support units, or the attacker who can neutralise the defender if his forward screen is in spotting range. Again I refer to my previous query, who benefits the most from these understandable compromises in the development of this game, the attacker or the defender? [snips]

There is a very good rule of thumb, first I believe enunciated by my pal Paul Syms, that simplifications made in combat models tend always to favour the attacker. One might naively assume that there is an evens chance of any given simplifcation favouring one or the other, but it turns out not to be so. The reason is that the attacker is trying to change the situation, but the defender is happy if it stays the same. Generally, more complications make it harder to change things. In Real Life[tm], the complications mean that just arranging for everyone to cross the start-line at Zero (with adequate rest, food, ammo and clue as to what is happening) is so brain-buggeringly difficult that it's quite hard to do even when there is no enemy at all.

Does Borg spotting favour the attacker? It seems to me that it certainly does. It removes the complication of one element of a force indicating targets for another. Target indication -- fire orders, the clock-ray method, "watch my tracer", mucking about with tank telephones to try to tell the tank gunner where to look, sending grid references accurately over the radio -- is something real military training devotes a fantastic amount of time to. In wargames, it is all achieved as if by magic. That's why you see your ATk guns die under a massive salvo of HE the instant the first spotter gets a sniff of them.

All the best,

John.

[Bigduke6]

"Again a strawman. It is sufficient that the time available is more than enough to burn through available ammo and cover required distances, at a slow, deliberate pace. The speed of the defender's reaction, on the other hand, is quite irrelevant."

Irrelevant? I beg to differ, by that logic, Austerlitz never could have taken place.

Me, I don't see how concentrating firepower more effectively than the other guy is something only the attacker can do, provided the attacker attacks deliberately.

[Vark]

Yes, Kenneth Mackasey's? book Battle? is very good at showing the minutae that is condensed in a simulation. I'd love to have a game that rated traffic police to show how many tanks arrive on time for an operation! I agree that borg spotting reduces the capabilities of a defender as it reduces the chance of a rapid counter attack succeeding. Also the typical wargaming 25 minutes to take an objective lends itself to a 'rush'. Still an exciting game but not a model with which to debate real WWII tactics I feel

[undead reindeer cavalry]

in my experience the most effective counter to slow careful attack are cheap HE-oriented individual AFVs in positions that can see the advancing enemy (see as in fire at them) but which in turn can not be seen by the enemy overwatch.

i like to have some lightish AT-guns in horizontal (or even higher angles) positions to the front of the AFVs. people tend to do stupid things when they face a situation in which they need to "do something".

i also try to bait the enemy overwatch by tiny infantry groups that open fire at enemy at seemingly stupid ranges. if the opponent takes the bait, i take his non-armored overwatch with mortars (HQ-targetted or not). if the enemy has lots of armor it's better to not bait him

lots depends on the terrain naturally.

[pamak1970]

If the attackers pace allows the defender to capitalize on his intel advantage by maneuvering his forces to weak spots of the attacker, the defender can achieve local odds, local lopsided losses and thus stall the offensive.

This is an interesting point. Joachim you said you are not interested in maneuver or attrition warfare theories but you are actually taking a position towards the former when you play a CM game.

It is interesting that in previous threads related to those theoritical issues i had pointed that Jason seemed to underestimate fog of war issues and the role of intelligence in real life.

Now,if i understood it right you argue that he underestimates the role of intelligence and reaction time in a CM game.

In a way, the deliberate slow approach is the application of Jason's "attrition mentality" in the game, while your argument of "speed and reaction time does matter" , is the "maneuver mentality".

In order to avoid misunderstandings, CM can not really be used to test those theories. It does indicate though how certain personal beliefs about real life issues may actually affect a personal game style .

Or it might be even the opposite, having CM results affecting beliefs about real life issues

[Joachim]

Well, I move forces to score kills. Is this maneuver cause I move or attrition cause I kill?

Even an attritionist has to move forces to bring his weapons to bear - and even a maneuverist won't just sit there and say "hey, I'm in the better position - now surrender" (except for Renaissance Italy).

And this is the reason why I don't give a **** about theory - the truth is somewhere in the middle. Note that this does not mean I am not interested in them - I'm ready to apply any good idea from either theory.

[ June 09, 2008, 02:02 PM: Message edited by: Joachim ]

[pamak1970]

Well, I move forces to score kills. Is this maneuver cause I move or attrition cause I kill?

Maneuver.

As i was reading the steelbeast forums, i saw the following coming from the designer who happens to be a proffesional German officer of the tank Corps.......................

"If we want to reduce the debate to buzz slangs, the difference between maneuver and attrition warfare is the reversal of means and purpose - do we apply firepower in order to enable maneuver, or do we move in order to apply firepower. Either way, fire cannot be separated from maneuver."

Of course you have every right to claim that there is much more to the debate between maneuver theory and attrition but essentially your approach is more "shifted" if you want towards the maneuver theory mentality than attrition theory mentality

This does not mean that you diregard the value of overwatch and fire, but you seem to be ready as an attacker to trade at least in some cases a portion of your potential firepower for more speed.

BigDuke6 says the same."Better in some cases to go with somewhat less and faster than with everything you can master under a deliberate carefull approach but slower"

The right balance of speed and patience is the backbone of military ART.

From the same thread of steelbeasts i wrote there my version of the difference between maneuver and attrition theory.

I will repeat it

" To me

Blitzkrieg is the willingness to trade a portion of your potential firepower and information , in exchange of more speed.

Of course as others said, everybody needs to use firepower under any theory. The idea is that under blitzkrieg you count on going with less (firepower and information) but still be able to overpower your enemy because

1. He also has less information (operationally speaking) and the simple fact that you go faster than him adds more uncertainty to his side. So although you accept higher level of uncertainty, you still aim towards information dominance over the enemy

2. He also has less firepower cause he lacks information and time to concentrate it against you. Again you aim to overpower him at a location of your choice , and although you traded a portion of firepower for speed, the simple fact that you have the initiative to choose where to fight and speed of execution, gives you the time advantage of concentrating superior firepower over him before he applies counter-measures.

"

[ June 09, 2008, 03:21 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

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[Silvio Manuel]

Sure - email me and we'll discuss the particulars

[ June 13, 2008, 11:56 PM: Message edited by: Silvio Manuel ]

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[Silvio Manuel]

Hmmm, I'll defer to them, didn't realize the match was for that cause.

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[JasonC]

Overloading a sector (plus surprise-intel effect) is the only attack form they know. So naturally they think counters to that form are an always successful, general defense formula. They've simply never faced an attritionist attack. It is like telling a Morphy-Capablanca player that initiative is irrelevant with a sufficient space advantage. They simply lack the frame of reference to see the point.

[jtcm]

Actually, what is the best counter against an "overloading a sector" attack ? in CMBO days, I would try to waltz in with a counter attack against flanks or rear. With CMBB mg suppression effects (remember the shock when they were introduced !), this became even more idiotic than it was with CMBO.

Additional point: JasonC, are you claiming that with right odds, an attritionist, firepower deliberate attack is simply not stoppable in the end ? (all things being equal). As the bald leader says in Seven Samurai, "Defence is by far the hardest form"

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Adam1:

I just want to see how this whole mobile reserve ambush thing plays out versus what I understand to be a cautious attack. I was always taught such defenses were designed to counter maneuver/shock attacks where sector loading and time is more an issue.

why don't you just try it by playing against yourself?

in my experience mobile HE is very effective against a crawling attack. it kills his infantry while it doesn't give his overwatch the opportunity to fire back, and you can move it around as needed (which makes pinning by MGs more useful).

the talk about defensive "shadows" is a bit moot, since different positions have different shadows, discovery of each requiring first the "activation" of the position. the different shadows between active HE positions and hidden AT positions is especially noteworthy, as it is directly related to the mobility (read: survivability) of attacker's overwatch. anyway, the defender has the privilegion to choose where the battle takes place, thus you can choose a few "cells" at locations that are most suitable for the good work.

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