How to win QB flag races?

[Der Kuenstler]

When in a situation where you are trying to race infantry to a flag ahead of your opponent's infantry, what is the most effecient combination of commands to use without getting your units tired, exhausted, or pinned? It seems like my more experienced opponents always seem to get there first and I'm not sure why.

[Panzer76]

1. For inf, use fast command all the way to your destination, but chnage them to something more sensible after the first turn.

2. Find vantage points that can observe the enemy advance and employ harassing fire from those points if possible.

3. Employ AC and/or HTs to race forward on any roads with inf as passengers. T34s are also good for this. Use this force to harass enemy until the rest of your force catch up or reach their destinations.

Hope that helps.

[dieseltaylor]

There may be threads on fitness and how far troops can run before tired - or you can do a little test.

I think a minutes running knackers regular troops - a figure of 80 metres comes to mind - after that a mixture of move run - and eventually advance

[JasonC]

"my more experienced opponents always seem to get there first"

1 - avoid multiple command delays. If you give new orders every turn, you only move a third of the time.

2 - in a race, vets with a +command leader move out the fastest. The fewer waypoints, the faster they move. You can often get there with just 2 - a single change of direction.

3 - the fastest route avoids cover instead of using it, if the enemy won't yet be in position to fire on that route at all. Roads, then open, then other light terrain (wheat, brush etc) then everything else.

4 - run for 150-200 meters, no further, while the men are still fresh, if you can be sure nobody will see them. The part of a route along a road is the best place to run, open next.

5 - watch the fatigue state and likely enemy spots or fire chances. Change the speed to your next waypoint in your command phase, rather than using a different waypoint for each change of speed.

6 - move is as fast as anything but run and doesn't tire out anyone. If fire might occur you can add "to contact".

7 - save some "wind" for advances in the last minute or two into cover the enemy might have reached. It is OK to be on tiring at that point, but not on tired.

8 - heavy weapons ride if possible, and use move behind a squad infantry platoon otherwise.

9 - a vehicle or two pushed forward can delay the enemy with MG fire. But use a narrow LOS to avoid losing the vehicle. The ideal spot is a keyhole with LOS to a field just short of the common bit of cover that is the subject of the race.

10 - do not push too far. The whole point of being fast early is to be stationary in cover at the moment of contact. You throw that away if you greedily keep trying for the next clump of trees, in addition.

[Other Means]

Don't race:

wait until he's there, hit it with BIG arty - then throw him out.

stop him getting there with MG's & light flak - 2 or 3 in cover can usually shoot diagonally across your opponents side of the cover

Concentrate on the main objectives, arrive with more firepower, win that fight with superior numbers then move to the secondaries