Lame but Effective Defense

[dasreich]

Its been awhile since Ive posted on the forum, but has anyone ever tried a static defense consisting of a solid line of trenches across the map? Coupled with lots of inf and AT guns, I was able to annihilate my opponents forces and took less than 10 casualties.

I have found it effective, but lame too. Any other rock solid defenses out there?

[walpurgis nacht]

I assume you mean in a QB right? If so, it isn't lame because it's effective, it's lame because someone actually lost to this defense. Against a reasonable player, there is virtually no way this concept will work.

to line a medium map with a trench wall is a crazy waste of points. If you're defending in an 800 point match with a medium map, you need roughly 30 trenches to cover the map with a complete trench line. That's 300 points, leaving you 500 to fill this line. That one CO and a few AT guns at best. Not to mention they have to cover the full length of the map.

[ May 22, 2003, 05:43 AM: Message edited by: Walpurgis Night ]

[Slappy]

I agree that covering the entire frontage with trenches is probably a waste, but trenches can be an important part of your balanced breakfast.

In woods, they're little better than foxholes. Trenches are best used where there is not sufficient cover to defend effectively without them.

In either case, If I had enough to span the map, I'd probably use them in staggerd layers rather than an unbroken line.

[Redwolf]

Buy as many 20mm or 23mm AA guns as you can.

Any map type, any attacking force, no chance for the attacker, especially when you can get the extra-cheap HE-only Russian types.

[urefinger]

hi, long time player, first time poster. ive found trenches to be absoloutly INVALUABLE when playing a defensive game. i use them to create forward posistions and isolated strong points (do a half ring round the top of a wooded hill with at guns in the woods infantry in the trenches it is SOOOOO hard to break it. you have to pound it with artillery for like 5 mins to shock the gun crews and infantry so you can rush it with infantry) it basicly allows you to turn open areas into heavily wooded areas (in terms of cover) but even better.....it doesnt apply to the enemy!\

in case u didnt guess. i buy like at least 12 trenches in a defensive scenario

[Louie the Toad]

It's World War I.

Where's the mustard.... gas. Toad

[Chad Harrison]

Originally posted by redwolf:

Buy as many 20mm or 23mm AA guns as you can.

Any map type, any attacking force, no chance for the attacker, especially when you can get the extra-cheap HE-only Russian types.

Make sure you get some flak trucks also. By this point I dont know if your opponent will be talking to you

"Alright sir, todays objective is that big flag and the little one too. Our scouts report that we are facing a dug-in AAA battalion. Those gamey bastages didnt even bring any infantry! This is the last time we fight with unrestricted points!"

[Nippy]

Originally posted by Chad Harrison:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by redwolf:

Buy as many 20mm or 23mm AA guns as you can.

Any map type, any attacking force, no chance for the attacker, especially when you can get the extra-cheap HE-only Russian types.

Make sure you get some flak trucks also. By this point I dont know if your opponent will be talking to you

"Alright sir, todays objective is that big flag and the little one too. Our scouts report that we are facing a dug-in AAA battalion. Those gamey bastages didnt even bring any infantry! This is the last time we fight with unrestricted points!" </font>

[Redwolf]

The Flak halftracks have been bad in CMBO because they couldn't be hit with tank direct fire when used right. That has been fixed for CMBB, they die fine now.

No way they are more effective than a one of the unspottable FlaK guns in foxholes, not to speak of trenches.

[ May 27, 2003, 08:20 AM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[CombinedArms]

My theory on dealing with flak guns in trenches is:

1) get infantry close enough to ID the trenches.

2) blast the trenches with direct area fire from tanks. If you get any sound contacts, approximate their location in the trench and area fire on that.

3) Area fire from MGs, mortars, onboard guns, etc. can add to the fun

4) flak guns and anything else in the trenches will eventually break and run

5) gun down any visible units with all available weapons

6) when the occupants of the trench are sufficiently supressed, attack with infantry and tanks. Canister close up on a trench can really do some damage...

20mm AA weapons can't do much against tanks. They are the answer in this case--the big ammo loads in the T34s makes them particularly effective. Now, real ATGs in trenches, supported by infantry and HMGs--that's another story. More realistic and, IMHO, a tougher nut to crack. No need to extend the trenches across the board. A strongpoint around each flag or commanding critical terrain on the board should suffice. Trenches ARE great cover.

Even in the open they have only 9% exposure. Foxholes in woods are 14%, so trenches offer half again as much protection. And trenches are hard to spot until you get close. A heavy building offers 10% protection, almost as good, but it sticks up and can be blasted to bits by tanks, plus you can't place an ATG in a building.

In general, of course, I think it's good to avoid unrestricted points. A defender in combined arms battle can't load up on trenches and small AA to the exclusion of all else.

[ May 28, 2003, 03:47 PM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ]

[Redwolf]

You don't understand.

In CMBB, the AA guns up to 37mm Axis (but not 37mm Russian) are so hard to spot that you cannot get near enough to ever spot them on any halfway open map.

They do work just fine against any tank no matter how heavy since gun damage is reasonably easy to achieve and you can buy many, many flak guns and they have high ROF. You achieve the neccessary number of front hits in no time - less than a turn.

If you don't believe me send a PBEM setup.

[ May 28, 2003, 07:39 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Chad Harrison]

Originally posted by redwolf:

They do work just fine against any tank no matter how heavy since gun damage is reasonably easy to achieve and you can buy many, man flak guns and they have high ROF.

If you also dont believe him, have two king tiger tanks {approx 600 points} attack against 20 dug-in 20mm AA guns. Under all that fire the tanks will most likely panic and thats that. Or there is always the dreaded 'damaged gun' possibility.

Chad

[CombinedArms]

I just took a look at how many 20 mm guns you can buy in a 1250 point game--a LOT, since they Axis ones are only 20 points or so with no rarity. And its no doubt true that that many no-see-em guns shooting at tanks would get gun damage eventually.

I wonder if an attacker knowing he was facing trenches and 20mm's wouldn't do better with 75/76mm infantry guns and a few jeeps/trucks to move em (behind cover of course). They're cheap too--about 26 points, and could put a hurt on a trench once it was spotted. Or is this the new gamey tactic, unbeatable even by unhistoric methods?

[Redwolf]

I think you will have difficulties coming near enough to spot the trenches, except if there is cover reaching up to 200m of the trenches.

And if there is, the trench will be empty

I think you would need a gazillion of time for this attack. You would have to move the attacking infantry guns through woods or rough, otherwise they would die too quickly. That means they have to be pushed 20 meters at least and then plus setup time. I kinda doubt you will exchange one attacking gun to one unspotted defending gun, though. It is too difficult to get ahold of the position of the Flak guns, the stealth advance CMBB gives them is very very big.

Anyone wants to play this? Should I post exact parameters?

[ May 28, 2003, 10:50 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Redwolf]

Awww, come on guys, I need a sick PBEM.

I'll play attack or defense. Just name parameters.

[xerxes]

I tried this against the AI with a standard combined arms attacking force. The flak guns lost rather badly. The flak guns aren't really that effective against infantry and when the flak guns open up they can be ID'd at 300-400m if you're putting enough infantry eyes on their locations. Once the flank gun location is ID'd the flak guns are post toastie.

Naturally you want to use your tanks wisely, keeping LOS to your tanks restricted so they can engage the flak guns in isolation.

Using all your support points for flak guns doesn't seem like a good idea.

I'd just finished a PBEM where my opponent bought a good number of flak guns. The flak did manage to gun damage a T34 and take out a couple of T60s but the flak guns really weren't a major hinderance, just an annoyance.

I do like the technique of getting some flak guns and placing them deep, ideally 400+m away from where the enemy infantry can reach.

[Redwolf]

Hm, I was rather thinking of spending 90% of all points (not only support points) on green FlaK guns.

Area fire should keep the infantry away just fine.

[xerxes]

LOL, the reason I don't like unrestricted. I don't want to defend against someone who spends all their points on conscript 300mm rocket spotters either.

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by redwolf:

Hm, I was rather thinking of spending 90% of all points (not only support points) on green FlaK guns.

Area fire should keep the infantry away just fine.

Well, I will take you on with this as a PBEM if you really want to try it. I think, with Xerxes, that it should be beatable, but we can see. My thought is that there should be SOME kind of semi-realistic peremeters, though--i.e. we should be testing a setup that might actually appear in a real PBEM. So I'd suggest a Russian mid-1943 combined arms attack against an Axis infantry defense. That would allow reasonable points for both trenches and lots of 20mms without becoming totally improbable.

My email is in the profile if you want to work out the details.

[ May 29, 2003, 02:14 PM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ]

[Redwolf]

I don't think this works anymore with the combined arms allowance. There are not enough FlaK guns to achieve secure gun damage on any AFV appearing. The AFV will be able to move so that only one or two guns have LOS at any given time.

If I get home I'll figure out what the threshold may be.

The whole thing is not to prove that this defense is realistic. The point is that CMBB has a realism problem around the small AA guns.

[Redwolf]

Hehe.

Just did some editor babbling. If you give me unrestricted force, unrestricted quality, maybe even high losses and Soviets (no AP in the FlaK guns) this is not all all beatable, even with +200% attacker force size.

You should not initiate this if you want any klind of realistic game

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by redwolf:

Hehe.

Just did some editor babbling. If you give me unrestricted force, unrestricted quality, maybe even high losses and Soviets (no AP in the FlaK guns) this is not all all beatable, even with +200% attacker force size.

You should not initiate this if you want any klind of realistic game

Well, I guess that's the issue...I'm not sure it's a problem with CM if it takes unrealistic conditions (in the sense of conditions a competent opponent would rarely agree to--and never twice!) to set up this unbeatable situation.

I did a little messing around with an Allied combined arms attack against 20mms in trenches and had no trouble winning a 94-6 victory as Allies vs. the AI with the 20mm. It would take the right conditions and some cleverness to make this defense work. The key for the attacker is to get infantry within 200m of the trenches. Then the trenches can be hammered by HE. I find both trenches and guns (when they fire) can be spotted by troops w/in 200m. The defender with the 20 mms would have to deny the attacker access to getting w/in spotting range at all costs.

[xerxes]

Ok, I tried unrestricted, Soviets got all 37mm flak and trenches. I took a platoon of pzIIIs and a platoon of PzIIs and a company of jaeger backed by onboard mortars.

Result:

Axis: 96%

Allies: 4%

I took 6 infantry casualties and one PzII that I used as aggressive recon. One of the PzIIIs ended up with gun damage.

The autogenerated map was fairly open and favored the defender.

When faced with a combined arm force, the flak guns just can't do it. All you need to do is get enough eyes on target with binocs. Expose some infantry first, the flak guns have to respond, hammer the guns with onboard mortars. Then advance more infantry and bring the tanks into position with a view of a portion of the field.

The flak guns get id'd reasonably quickly and taken out.

A standard attack works quite well against a pure flak defense.

I'd rather have some HMGs to stop the infantry.

Probably a flak heavy defense shines against very expensive later war heavy tanks.

[Redwolf]

Xerxes

My point is about the unspottablity of the (see above) "AA guns up to 37mm but not the Russian one".

Needless to say, the next test somebody runs uses the Russian 37mm and - surprise - it doesn't work.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by CombinedArms:

Well, I guess that's the issue...I'm not sure it's a problem with CM if it takes unrealistic conditions (in the sense of conditions a competent opponent would rarely agree to--and never twice!) to set up this unbeatable situation.

The topic of this thread is "lame but effective defense". Of course that requires unrealitsic forces, if the force was realistic it wouldn't be lame.