Quantity defence beats Quality attack?

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Adam1:

Well, if nobody wants to do a battle and demonstrate the mobile counter to the cautious attack, that's a shame. It also would have been fun.

sorry, i don't have time at the moment, and i'm not even sure if i am talking about the same thing the others talk about. i am serious about playing against yourself. i used to do it to test out various tactics.

What are defensive shadows?

areas the defender can't see because of the way he has positioned. e.g. the draw back of keyholing.

What vehicles or units offer good mobile-HE? (Cost effective, not in terms of "points" but in terms of materials cost and survivability)

pretty much the only survivability requirement i have is that it isn't too easy to neutralize with indirect fire. thus, it's a vehicle and it has some armor. a MG is good to have but not necessary. i don't intend to use these vehicles in AT role. if they can do it, it's a bonus. since the main role is HE, it needs to have decent calibre.

you rule it out, but in my opinion it needs to be cheap.

[Tux]

StuH 42s are pretty good for that. It's just a late StuG with a 105 howitzer instead of the 75mm gun = good survivability and excellent HE firepower.

150mm infantry guns are good too, but harder to keep alive after the opening shot.

For the soviets, I reckon T-34s are about as good as you'll get for cheap HE chucking. The SU and ISU gun carriages pack excellent HE loadouts, but they're usually quite expensive.

As always, other, more knowledgable people will be in soon to add to/ contradict my suggestions.

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[Tux]

It would, yes, but 75mm HE doesn't hit particularly hard. Not compared to 105 or 150 anyway. The germans have a few heavy SPGs that are more thinly armoured than StuHs, but they tend to be vulnerable to ATRs and HMGs as well, so I'm not sure they'd fit your 'survivability' requirements unless you were happy to use them very carefully.

In my experience indirect high-calibre fire is very, very effective. Direct fire from comparable calibres is at least as effective though, provided you keep the chucker alive long enough. It is, in fact, far more useful for quickly knocking out particular problem groups of enemy infantry, since it can be reliably aimed at pinpoint targets.

[JasonC]

No, I believe I already said an attrition attack can readily lose. It just isn't sufficient to see it coming - that is one thing it is extremely robust against, and really doesn't care about.

URDs HE chuckers are a fine approach to seeking some definite ace to build a defense around. Uber armor is another. Just trying for variance in the armor war (from cheap AT killers I mean, trying to trade 30 points for 120 several times over) can stress a methodical attack.

On the other hand, I don't think it is true that the defense alone picks the ground. That is in fact one of the long suits of a slow attrition attack, actually. It picks its own route and doesn't advance to a given area until its pre-req areas have been neutralized.

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[JasonC]

Points are a reasonable gauge of exchange relations. When they aren't accurate you can correct them yourself, no problem. The point is to still think of everything as an exchange, paying something lost or used up, to take out a portion of the enemy force.

Attrition attacks are trying to trade through the less numerous defending force, and only need even exchange to do so. If the defender can ramp up the variance on exchanges, he lowers the probability that that simply works.

The attrition attacker wants a small edge to snowball deterministically into an clean outright win. Anything screwball that makes a big difference on a single chance event, has the potential to throw that off, by moving the remaining odds on the field in one big jump, to a position where slow and careful isn't enough anymore.

Defenders always want clean kills that expend little to take out a lot, of course. They need ways of getting that, to beat slow careful attack methods. The point is the defender needs to think of his problem in attrition terms, too, because that is what the attack is going to be stressing - not his temporary unit placements or his timing.

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[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Tux:

StuH 42s are pretty good for that. It's just a late StuG with a 105 howitzer instead of the 75mm gun = good survivability and excellent HE firepower.

150mm infantry guns are good too, but harder to keep alive after the opening shot.

For the soviets, I reckon T-34s are about as good as you'll get for cheap HE chucking. The SU and ISU gun carriages pack excellent HE loadouts, but they're usually quite expensive.

As always, other, more knowledgable people will be in soon to add to/ contradict my suggestions.

vehicle selection depends on available points, terrain type and what little you know about likely enemy force selection.

i'm not that interested in having good armor in the vehicles, since i am defending and basicly ambushing advancing infantry platoons and other soft assets. i'm not driving into an enemy AT-gun ambush or stuff like that. most of the time the vehicles are sitting out of LOS, and will only drive into firing positions when other eyes have spotted targets or enemy chooses to march into fire. the only survivability concern i really have is that of not being too sensitive to enemy indirect fire.

for Germans i'm talking about stuff like a green Wespe platoon. you get a very good load of 105mm HE separated to 4 vehicles. these will tear apart whole platoons of advancing infantry before the enemy has chances to react, especially if used as sections or with interlocked sectors. you can even spare to fire at suspected enemy positions because of the ammo load & the way CM handles HE exploding near moving crew served weapons. the cost is so low that it's hard to not get a positive trade.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by JasonC:

On the other hand, I don't think it is true that the defense alone picks the ground. That is in fact one of the long suits of a slow attrition attack, actually. It picks its own route and doesn't advance to a given area until its pre-req areas have been neutralized.

for attritionist attack the routes are picked before the battle begins, it is not a recon-pulled maneuver force. i deny the attacker those specific routes i as a defender choose. i do not care about the other routes, because they are useless what comes to destroying my force. i trade ground for destruction of enemy forces. i force the attacker to change his plans by denying routes, and at that very point the attack becomes a mess. historically it became a gigantic mess where regiment sized forces suffered operational fires, in CM it becomes less of a mess if the attacker spends hours to plan the needed adjustments.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Adam1:

But I don't really understand the idea of buying units which perform well relative to their point value.

units perform well relative to their point values only against specific types of targets under specific conditions.

for example i would never buy a green Wespe platoon if i would face an armor heavy force.

or if the situation is still the original one, but i have to deliver the fires quicker and against more bunched up enemy, i would buy Hummels or Grilles instead.

on the other hand if i had much time to spend in firing at the enemy infantry, plus perhaps the opponent would have practically unarmored vehicles, i might buy a green Somua platoon instead.

and so forth.

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Adam1:

Well, if nobody wants to do a battle and demonstrate the mobile counter to the cautious attack, that's a shame. It also would have been fun.

Sorry, but RL is a bit overwhelming right now. One of the few relaxing moments last week was getting to the office in a backseat. There are some setups for small battles on my list which I haven't even looked at.

The problem with the mobile defence is the necessity of space. My last one was done on a 3x2k with a RCT sized force. It takes some time to play those battles.

@Jason:

I see you know my attackers better than I do.

Gruß

Joachim

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[JasonC]

Personally I'd take 3 StuHs over 4 Wespes, every day and twice on Sunday.

[JasonC]

To amplify the last point, here are some Russian force selection counters to the thin HE chucker approach -

Buy a Yak-9 with 8 strafing passes, 20mm and 50 cal. Doesn't care about keyholing, costs what 2 Wespes cost without considering point-odds.

Buy a M5 halftrack and 2-4 50 cal HMGs. Those are dual use compared to ATRs and kill thin armor much faster, from cover. The 'track can help them reposition, has its own 50, can more 82mm mortars around etc. Cost 80-120 points.

Buy a Stuart platoon. Fast, gun sufficient against anything thin, very high MG ammo to threaten infantry. Plenty of them, enough to counter every chucker and to spare.

Buy an SU-122 platoon for HE firepower. Trade off his Wespes with the above, and then do the same to him with ~80 shots of direct-accurate high blast HE yourself.

Mix and match. You can afford 2-3 of the above counters easily, with attacker point odds.

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[Joachim]

...and then the attacker has to apply the right key to each keyhole - in the correct sequence.

Wespe or HTs are mobile. Once they did their job - move. Maybe have something waiting for the counter. The key in mobile defence is to outguess the attacker - and this starts when planning the defense.

If you anticipate the counter to your first surprise, you will have the first shot in the second encounter.

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[Joachim]

Yes. But you need a route where overwatch works everywhere, everytime, vs any possible threat. A few tiny spots might ruin the day for the attacker. especially if they are so tiny he does not see them.

There are but a few battlefields where overwatch works everywhere, everytime versus any possible threat.

If the amount of routes with maximum overwatch is rather limited, the attacker becomes predictable.

Which makes it easier for the defender.

The question is not whether attritionist beats maneuvrist or vice versa. The question is if you are one step further than your opponent. If you are limited by adhering to some theory, it is easier to outguess you.

Amateurs are dangerous - professionals are predictable.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Personally I'd take 3 StuHs over 4 Wespes, every day and twice on Sunday.

StuH platoon costs more than a Wespe platoon, while it carries only ~40 HE shells, where as Wespe platoon over 100. Wespe platoon delivers more than three times more of blast / point. having 4 instead of 3 vehicles is also a nice addition. i don't need the armor of the StuH, because i have other arms for AT work and by definition the Wespes won't be seen by the enemy overwatch.

regarding your counters, only CAS is really applicable, because your vehicles won't get to shoot at the Wespes. either i simply don't allow them to, by not giving them the duel, or they will be taken by my AT assets when they move forward. i, as the defender, choose when my Wespes engage targets.

naturally a lot depends on the map. if it's a tiny flat open map i won't buy a green Wespe platoon.

one counter to Wespes would be to use smoke or harrassing indirect fires, together with quick rushes forward, but that is specifically what a slow methodological approach is not about.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Adam1:

Are there any units you never buy?

assault boats.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Adam1:

Attritionist attackers should therefore attack along routes where their overwatch works.

historically the attritionist overwatch is 100 battalions of arty. first you create huge odds at the chosen attack sector (e.g. Soviet offensive against Finland in 1944, the odds at the breakthru sector were 18:1), then throw gigantic fires at defenders (this is the overwatch, in the case quoted above, it was 200 000 rounds of HE delivered in two hours against more or less a single regiment) and then attack, attack, attack. single attacking unit being typically a reinforced regiment, fighting as a part of a corps level (or larger) attack against a single defending regiment. when one corps is worn out, you throw in another one. you count to win by stressing the defender's lines enough to cause a breakthru. you have the odds and thus think you can take the attrition.

[ June 23, 2008, 01:06 AM: Message edited by: undead reindeer cavalry ]

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[Cuirassier]

Adam1,

Have you found a game to experiment with the mobile defence yet? I am certainly no great maneuverist, but I am interested in seeing how such a defense may counter the careful, attrionionist approach. I am up for a game if you want to try some of these concepts out.