Maneuver or Momentum?

[medlinke]

I think that this is an interesting question?

Let me qualify it a bit though...

By Maneuver I mean out-moving your opponent to gain the initiative in battle.

By Momentum I mean, as well put as it was in We were soldiers, "grabbing by the beltbuckle and not letting go"

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I think that it is definitely possible to gain momentum through maneuver, but what I'm getting at is starting strategies.

Do you throw men at your opponent for feint or for the kill from the get go?

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[Michael Emrys]

Depends on the circumstances. Which is a chicken**** way of saying that it is a very complicated issue with many, many factors to be taken into consideration before a reasoned answer can be given.

But you can take it as given that the distinction is pretty much confined to the operational level and above. By the time you arrive on the CM battlefield, you and your opponent have stopped maneuvering and have come to grips.

There is, however, a little leeway in that terrain and the relative mobility of the two sides may permit some maeuvering. I am currently engaged in a QB against the AI in very hilly but moderate trees terrain. I have chosen to send the bulk of my troops in along low-lying ground in order to protect them from the fire of enemy weapons sited to sweep the hilltops. This has worked well in that I have consistently been able to bring overwhelming firepower against small numbers of defending enemy troops. But even so, if you were to notch up the scale of the map by an order of magnitude (as seen by the regimental or divisional commander, for instance), it would look pretty much like a straight ahead frontal attack.

Occasionally in CM, a terrain feature will permit you to concentrate your attack on one flank and then roll the enemy up. But more commonly, enemy ranged fire from one flank can reach across the map to the other flank. So you need to either commit forces on that side to suppress it, or drop a curtain of smoke to block off fire from there, and then maintain that for however many turns it takes to get your forces into the desired position. I find I rarely have that much smoke available.

Michael

[Redwolf]

I highly recomment doing a search for "maneuver" and "attrition", there had been MEGA thread ago it.

[The Commissar]

Maneuver cannot properly work in CMBO simply because your opponent is likely to fight his men to the death, even if he sees he is outnumbered, outflanked, etc. In real life, with proper execution, one's maneuver units can topple the morale of the enemy force and force defeat upon him without fighting. CMBO is about fun, and players aren't about to surrender even if it means all their little virtual troops are going to die horrible, screaming deaths.

Some elements of maneuver do work on the CM battlefield, however.

For example, dislocation works quite well on large maps. If your opponent has carefully set up flak nests, pillboxes, or some other such weapon and you bypass it, rendering it useless without fighting it, you have successfuly outmaneuvered the opponent. This is never easy of course.

Anyway, as redwolf said, there are numerous topics with dozens of pages devoted to the topic of maneuver.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by The Commissar:

Maneuver cannot properly work in CMBO simply because your opponent is likely to fight his men to the death, even if he sees he is outnumbered, outflanked, etc.

However, if you play against the AI, it will tend to break and run in a most satisfying manner.

Michael