Question: How to conduct an attack were the enemy is waiting for you

[JasonC]

Um, hello? You were asked what part of combined arms attacks was failing. You said "yes, the infantry part". You said you had watched platoons and whole companies just shot down, melting in close quarter combat.

Then when we ask you for detail, you tell us - *instead* - that you lost the armor war and then no infantry clash occurred, because of it. You present the armor duel as lost simply due to strong enemy front armor, which worked because (1) you attacked from the front and (2) somehow your Jagds were easily KOed by Shermans.

The details you describe have nothing to do with the problem you described before. Not a blessed thing. The only point in common would appear to be your units dying.

There were also a few items not in your description that might be somewhat to the point. You never describe the size of the fight, of the map, or the whole composition of your force. You never explain whether it was an attack or a meeting engagement, or any other scenario variable.

Instead you mention scouting properly with one rifle platoon (out of...), expecting to attack with pioneers (?) and StuH (attack? as opposed to fire in support), and 5-7 other AFVs depending on how we are to take your counting. The enemy, on the other hand, is 2 AT guns, an unknown number of infantry that mostly runs away, one Jumbo, and a Sherm 105.

One Jumbo proceeds to eat your entire force and ask for seconds, presumably before you have any notion what it is (despite your scouts having spotted "armor" on that hill). That, in substance, is what you have described.

This does not read like asking for tactical advice. It reads like "bwwwahhh, mommy, make the mean boys stop, he brought a Jumbo, no fair, I always lose, the game is always rigged against me, I always do everything right but I always lose anyway to guys no smarter than me, it is just the world as a whole that is unfair, bhwwaa". When you bring the Jumbo, presumably the subtle variation on the theme is "bwwaa, mommy, make the mean guys stop, he killed my Jumbo with one flank shot, when his always kill all of my tanks before I know what it is, no fair, bwwaaa".

If there is anything of greater military or CM interest going on here, be sure to point it out to us. Otherwise, you are just wasting everyone's time.

[Stixx]

ROFL Jason!!!

Well said mate!

[JAK]

Whoa! Easy Jason....Hasn't everybody felt at one point in time like just rolling on the floor in misery after that "perfect" attack was hacked to bits or the famous "That TIGER WASNOT JUST Ko'd by a STUART!". If you think he is wasting your time or BSing you then don't pay him any mind, but I think he is really that tactically inept (or just that unlucky) so this would be the right place to post with his question/situation.

Repectfully,

Jake

[newlife]

Hi again,

If you're having trouble with Jumbos, be sure to read the armor vs armor thread here in the tips section. Second, I might suggest you try a few MEs with an all infantry force to help your tank fighting. How does attacking without tanks help tank combat? It forces you to learn new ways to remove tank threats without the big guns. Play on maps large enough that you can flank. Bring plenty of arty for laying smoke screens (an 81mm FO is fine). Play Brit Paras and maybe buy a jeep with an AT gun as well.

The key to remember with tanks is you don't always have to kill them to remove them from the fight. Sometimes all you need is a short smoke screen to get you by the kill zone. Often, the tank will have to expose a side to get a btter position on your men, making an excelent opportunity to take it out. If the enemy knows you have AT threats then he may not move it at all. The other key to remember about tanks is they need infantry to keep them safe. If you can disconnect the tank from its infantry, you can kill any tank.

Finally, on recon, sometimes it pays to send a single half-squad charging across a field. Sometimes he gets cut donw, but others (maybe even often) he makes it and you find out that the enemy left the cover empty of troops. A defender ALWAYS has fewer units than you do (unless you are buying REALLY expensive things, which is usually a mistake). Realize that he can't cover everything in strength.

[Thermopylae]

Of course, there is always that point where you make the call: Burn a platoon and a half for a chance to win at this route, or go around another way where it might or might not be any better? The 1.5 plts are your tank fees.

[Numidian]

Hi again Berkut. I count what? 8 or 9 peices of armor in your force and at least two platoons. You mentioned pioneers - How many? Unless you had about 5 platoons of crack paratroops or mtn. troops PLUS twice that many rifleman and maybe 3 HMGs, 6 MMGs, a couple of infantry guns and atry. etc. ------ You are armor heavy.

If that first platoon was able to reach the enemy so easily, you might continue to infiltrate along that line. How close did the recon pltn. get? within 100 meters? Did they carry a shrek with them? What size map? how far from your main position was your objective? What grade of troops do you favor for armor and infantry? How many points?

In my opinion one good tank in a good position is better than lots of tanks. Armor has specific avenues of approach that may effect your operations, cover them with AT elements and your concerns are minimized. Also, small fast firing AT guns can confuse and attract armor while the big boys tag them. I have seen a quad 20 drive a sherman back over a hill from 1000 meters away. True there is little hope of a kill but it distracts them most excellently.

On a field with lots of cover like you describe, infantry can take out armor very effectively. Work on the infiltration skills you seem to have. Get in close and then look for lanes to pass thru enemy lines. You get great intell and when the real attack begins the enemy can not manuever effectively with enemy in its rear area.

I have enjoyed all this tactic talk. I hope this keeps going.

[Berkut]

Terribly sorry Jason, for offending your keen intellect on matters military...I recalled that battle from memory. I'm sorry I just don't keep all the details for writing indepth AARs, so I do have to describe things in general terms. It's been enough for most of the other people who replied.

Sure I kept saying i tried everything, but the posts, including one email from Fionn, made me look long at hard at my own conduct. I have reached the conclusion that most of my problems are due to force levels being imbalanced. Being overly hasty in my approach. Not pulling back and trying another approach...I get victory flag fixation and keep pushing on regardless. Things go well, I get careless and then I get gubbed.

The mention of armour however, was to point out that luck can have a great bearing on any battle, my scouts only saw a star icon with the legend enemy armour. When it was first seen, it was mis-identified as an M10.

I mentioned the scouting and other elements to show that i try to implement what i have learned.

I did not address the issue of the infantry attacks failing?...I forgot, it's easily done. I just got annoyed at being harangued by someone like yourself for not writing enough details into my posts.

I apologise if I did not bring this across in my posts. I would not waste my time trying to BS someone over something like this, it's not in my nature. I appreciate any advice I am given.

In closing I would say that you not a very good at giving advice or taking criticism. You lose your temper too easily and feel that anything else written in reply, is somehow an attack on yourself.

I'll tell you what. In the interests of maintaining the general good humour, I'll spare you the agony of getting that fine military brain of yours from having to think down to my level, by suggesting that in future, if you see any of my posts....just ignore them. Think of all the money you'll save of headache pills and anti-acids.

It's a game christs sake Jason, get a grip

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by Berkut:

...Being overly hasty in my approach. Not pulling back and trying another approach...I get victory flag fixation and keep pushing on regardless. Things go well, I get careless and then I get gubbed.

The mention of armour however, was to point out that luck can have a great bearing on any battle, my scouts only saw a star icon with the legend enemy armour. When it was first seen, it was mis-identified as an M10.

You may already be putting this idea into practice: have your scout half squads be the highest quality available, they will provide faster complete ID's of enemy units. Exp. and more time spent observing the target will help. Perhaps you're rushing your armor forward too soon. I for one am utterly paranoid about maneuvering my armor and being exposed to AT ambushes, esp. AT guns. ID'ing the target is also crucial if you are the Allies facing the Big Cats...your crews won't fire Tungsten at a Tiger if they still think its a "Panzer IV?"

[ March 05, 2002, 09:40 PM: Message edited by: Silvio Manuel ]

[tiborhead]

By Berkut: Things go well, I get careless and then I get gubbed

That's yer problem, and believe me, I suffer from that same damn problem as well. It seems to me that you're timing is habitually off. Once again, mine is too. The only advice I can give you keep at it. I've been playing CM for... hmm, I quess about two years now I still suck. But the important thing is I still play.

It doesn't matter what kind of battle I play (QB vs AI/Hotseat, Attack, ME) I still often loose. Like yourself, I don't do too bad defending, but you can't play defensive battles all the time.

Just keep at it bro', and rest assured that there are others (well, me at least) like you out there.

[JasonC]

Well, this particular fellow who is so bad at giving advice has given a awful lot of it rather successfully over the years, and not just in CM. Perhaps the other side of the advice equation isn't as brilliant as it would like to be.

A wise man once noted that the first thing to do is to throw away conceit. Because nobody can learn anything he thinks he already knows. And your posts and attitude provide abundant evidence that you think you already know all sorts of things, that your own stated results prove you don't.

My diagnosis of your problem, both in CM play and in these posts, is the sin of pride, aka cockiness, aka not objectively assessing what you are doing and how normal it is for you to get stomped. I suspect things aren't going half as well as you think they are right before they go south on you - except in your own mind.

No, blaming unbalanced forces or bad breaks in map selection do not explain it. Pig headedness is a much more likely cause.

It is more common. It is more extreme. It is much more uniform in its effects. People suffering from it rarely know it. Their play fails to improve in any radical manner over time, despite many a "lesson". They are usually convinced they are great players, just beset by poor luck. I've seen it in CM, other wargames, in chess, in poker, and in serious matters as well as games. You show all the usual signs.

Taking the statement that your play is probably pig-headed, personally, would be another such sign of such learning-stopping conceit. The begining of learning better tactics is recognizing that your present ones are to blame for your defeats and self-proclaimed disillusionment, and your mixing of ego with objective analysis is the cause of their failure to reform sufficiently on their own.

In CM, such misassessments of the tactical state of the battle are unforgiving. They result in exactly the sort of phenomenon you have described. Meaning, an attack that goes south rapidly when the serious firefighting starts, by running too cockily into the buzz saw of intact enemy defenses.

I'll use your last example, because it is the one you've given the most information about. Here is how I read what you said about it, with my "magic secret special super cockiness-detector decoder ring", which I got out of a box of cracker jacks.

You are very impressed with how well you scout. This is proved by getting a platoon opposite the hill and spotting things, without being detected at all.

You are very impressed with your understanding of proper combined arms. This is proved by your delight in taking out AT guns with a light mortar FO.

You are very impressed with your understanding of clever exploitation of gamey aspects of CM. This is proved by your evident delight in pushing up one side with your flank covered by a bottomless pit. And your units selections, preference for mortars over other forms of artillery, etc.

You are very impressed with how well you understand the role of various unit types, especially crackers of defensive positions. This is proven by your delight in StuHs and Pioneers for main assaults. Your hair nearly stands on end over how well you understand keeping a reserve.

You are positively aglow with self-regard over your mastery of overwatch principles, with no less than 3 AFVs covering your probe from excellent positions, mutually supporting, with clear fields of fire onto the objective.

Everything was obviously perfect. You are obviously the greatest combined arms maestro since Erwin Rommel. Only Fionn, privately, might perhaps manage to teach you a tweak or two, but that is like saying water can be drawn from a rock by certain local potentates.

So why did it all fall apart in two minutes anyway? Obviously, nothing you did or forgot to do. It was an unfair map, since he got a bald top hill on one side that covered everything. Unit selection is ridiculously unfair and forces always unbalanced, because he took an ubertank. Your opponent practically cheated by taking a Jumbo. The game's random number generator smiled upon your foe, in the map he got and in results of fire. You know the gods of luck must exist, because they hate you.

Did you have to attack up the side with that hill? No, but the same hill created dead ground for you to use, and got you that far forward. Were you really unspotted in your approach? Evidentally not, considering the forces you met. Was the axis of attack any sort of surprise to your enemy? Sure, that is why he had 2 AT guns placed to cover the area. That means he had to know before you even hit "go" on turn 1.

Then your preliminary shelling - with relatively light stuff - KOed a point target or two, but little else. It also told the world you were coming - if he didn't already know. How prepared was the sector for your attack? You had an old M-10 sighting - which means a 76mm something, thus a shooter able to hurt all the armor you brought to the party. You then put all of said armor in LOS of the same hill - but even with 5 different heavy AT shooters, failed to secure side angle enough for any of them to have a flank shot on a single tank facing one direction.

You thought everything was going swimmingly, that the enemy was perfectly prepared in proper doctrinal fashion for your massive and overwhelming, brilliant blow (with pioneers no less). Your enemy, on the other hand, probably looked at the matter something like this.

"Well, he took out an AT gun, but he has expended half or more of two artillery modules doing it. At best a trade at attacker's odds, so no big loss there. My infantry is no worse than a little mussed hair. His infantry does not seem to be present yet in strength. But he's got the mother of all armor conventions moved to within LOS of my hill. One hunt command facing ever so carefully 'so', and he eats Jumbo plate, while I run the table. What's the downside? I might lose one tank. What's the upside? Total victory inside of two minutes."

Throw away conceit.

[Berkut]

I refer the honourable gentleman to the reply I made earlier.

Look Jason, I am not going to get in some silly juvenile and pedantic argument with you on this one. I consider this thread dead as far as I am concerned.

When looking over your post I am reminded of an old statement that says: those who can do, those who can't preach...or is that teach...no for you I think preach is right.

Listen, just back off mate...you have nothing constructive to say to me, so I'd appreciate it if you said nothing at all.

[Berkut]

I refer the honourable gentleman to the reply I made earlier.

Look Jason, I am not going to get in some silly juvenile and pedantic argument with you on this one. I consider this thread dead as far as I am concerned.

When looking over your post I am reminded of an old statement that says: those who can do, those who can't preach...or is that teach...no for you I think preach is right.

Listen, just back off mate...you have nothing constructive to say to me, so I'd appreciate it if you said nothing at all.

[newlife]

So,.... back to tactics! You've probably heard enough by now that anymore is probably lost until you try em out. Let us know how the next few battles come out.

Pete

[JAK]

Well said Newlife.

Jake

[Eric Alkema]

I thought that JasonC's advice sounded good. I think he had a right to be peeved when the example of infantry being murdered in CQB involved no infantry being killed. I hope Jason will resist the urge to keep kicking.

But that wasn't why I posted. Although my technique is not as slick as what Jason described I at least do the part about getting (or at least trying to get) overwhelming local superiority. My problem is that once I get that mass of troops banging away for a couple turns or more it starts raining artillery! What do you suggest doing about that?

I realize that my troops don't have to be bunched up in order to mass their firepower but situations where there is a wide band of cover opposite the spot I want to attack don't come along every day.

My current idea is to use a couple of infantry support tanks up close to my troops to make the "suppress the enemy" phase go as fast as possible.

[Caesar]

I may have missed it, but nobody seems to have mentioned crossfire. I know this is effective in real life and so I usually try to establish it when trying to suppress a defence. If I use US forces then I try to use the MGs that you get to set up a fire base at as wide an angle to my attack as possible. Does CM model this or am I wasting a lot of time and effort.

I too have suffered inumerable losses when attacking prepared defences. My basic mistakes seem to have been,

(1) Closing too early with SMG infantry (very painful)

(2) Not using my tanks effectively (i.e. to provide some HE support) incidently, I like what redford said about using a proper tank with plenty of HE for this role. My more recent successes have relied quite heavily on this.

(3) Rushing instead of preparing my attack properly and establishing good supporting fire.

(4) Not scouting properly (I still need to work on this, I usually seem to find only part of the defence)

(5) relying on 81mm mortars to suppress/break them. The poxy little things don't seem to do much more than create pretty patterns on the ground

(6) Poor timing with smoke. I either put down smoke and block my supporting fire so effectively give him reverse slope defence, or the smoke clears just as my men run across open ground

So basically if you don't do the above I think your attacks should succeed.

Can someone answer a question that has been bothering me, when I give a run order to charge a position, are my men able to fire while running? If so are you better to give the move order instead so that they can shoot back? Intuitively it seems a better idea to run, but if they can't shoot while running then it might not be such a good idea. I probably should experiment with this.

[Louie the Toad]

Caesar,

IIRC running = no shooting.

But have some overwatch, covering fire, to keep enemy heads down.

With regard to the rukus of earlier posts:

What sort of carpenter blames his tools?

What sort of teacher blames his students?

Platitudinal Toad

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Caesar:

Can someone answer a question that has been bothering me, when I give a run order to charge a position, are my men able to fire while running? If so are you better to give the move order instead so that they can shoot back?

They shoot back while running, that is a large part of where the MG problems in CMBO come from. CMBB will have a run commoand that doesn't shoot back and "assault" which will but is slower.

Having said this, they shoot back and that makes them stronger than they should be, they can overwhelm single defenders even when this defender would be strong enough to kill the attackers in real life. However, their own vulnarability while runnig is still much higher than when moving, so if they bump into enemy fire from multiple sources (even weak souces), they still get slaughtered.

What you seem missing is sneak. You need sneak in normal advantages even when you don't care about being seen or not. But sneak will make your men stop when they get into a fight. Move and run will let them continue to walk into their death, until they break earlier.

So sneak is good in not use Lemmings tactics. However, you must not sneak when you are out of cover since then they will stop in open ground and fight from there.

The right thing to do is to separate the approach way into many segments. Say there is some approach path with open ground, some trees, some houses known to be empty (or covered by your tanks) and some houses and woods where you suspect the enemy will be in.

Use run or move on open ground, but everytime you get through some piece of cover, use a sneak segment instead, so that if they got into a firefight while moving or sneaking they will stop in the cover and return fire. If you have known complete cover like the shadow of a house then use run to save time, but use move (never run) in open ground that might be covered by enemy fire and possible enemy positions cannot immediately be surpressed by your own cover fire.

Finishing them off

Plotting the last steps right into the cover the enemy is in is tricky and obviously depends on the state the enemy is in and your cover fire. CMBO models the value of the bajonett quite well, so if you are getting on some enemy you cannot effectivly supress, it might be worthwhile to run into the cover and finish them off.

But that is for not very supressed defenders. Obviously you need numerical superiority to win this. It is important to note that close combat will cause you losses in every case, even if the enemy has been supressed well. When close combat begins, supressive fire stops and the fist or bajonett fight practially always causes 1:1 casulties, except when one side is exhaust, but the previous supression (unless broken) does not matter anymore.

So, if the defender is supressed well, it is usually better to stay 20 meter away and finish them off with smallarms fire. That way you don't take any casulties as long as supression is good.

It is a bit counterintuitive that you charge the enemy that is not well supressed but stay at distance from the supressed one, but it is they way it is if you want to keep casulties low. And I think it is realistic, belt-hugging is good for the weaker party, and if the attacker who has already won loacally initiates it it is plain stupid. Useful MGs in CMBO would of course make the state of supression more realistic.

These rules can never be taken as such, other factors influence the right choice. For example, you might be low on ammo and prefer to sacifice some men, so you move onto supressed defenders. Or in a situation where you would prefer to fight from smallarms range there may be other enemy units (mortars, tanks) that threaten you shooting position or he may fire smoke into the LOS path which breaks supression and ralleys his defenders you could have finished off for fewer losses.

And as always this is a matter of taste. An armor player might prefer to use his infantry only to find and visually fix the enemy infantry and neither use smallarms nor hand-to-hand combat to finish them off, but call in an AFV to do that. Or uses his/her infantry to wait until an AFV breaks the defenders and then pursue them to kill them from smallarms from behind (if the ground behind the defensive position is known to be safe). This works well for houses, drive them out of the house with a tank, that occupy the house with infantry and shoot after them. Obviously you should watch the state of the house, if you broke it near collapse and then move your men in only to get the roof on thei head from a single enemy 37mm shell your opponent will have a good laugh.

P.S. you seem to mix me and rexford up. Rexford is the armor penetration science guru. Great book of his, BTW.

[Caesar]

Thanks Redford.

Do you know if crossfire is modelled in a realistic manner. I tend to spend quite a bit of time and effort establishing this and don't wish to if it is ineffective.

I do use sneak at the moment, however I have been using it wrong. I originally thought of it as creep (move/hiding), as in not fire. I was most grumpy when they first fired drawing attention to themselves. Since then I kind of use it as the human equivalent of hunt (only in cover)

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Caesar:

Thanks Redford.

See my P.S.

Do you know if crossfire is modelled in a realistic manner. I tend to spend quite a bit of time and effort establishing this and don't wish to if it is ineffective.

It is very well modeled. Shooting at a squad from anything but front is much more dangerous. If a squad begins to turn back and forth under two fire streams it is in very big trouble.

I do use sneak at the moment, however I have been using it wrong. I originally thought of it as creep (move/hiding), as in not fire. I was most grumpy when they first fired drawing attention to themselves. Since then I kind of use it as the human equivalent of hunt (only in cover)

Yes, I think the manual is just misleading here.

Respectivly, all the commands would be better implemented in TacOS-like SOPs and a speed setting.

[Caesar]

Doh! Sorry Redwolf, I read that and didn't twig to what you meant.

[Colonel_Klink]

Well, if it makes you feel any better Berkut, I've owned the game pretty much since it came out and played it regularly (never left my hard drive once). Since then, I've never won a single battle against the AI at all, unless the odds are so ridiculously high in my favor I'd have to be braindead to lose. I fear what would happen to me if I were to even attempt to play a human being.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Well, this particular fellow who is so bad at giving advice has given a awful lot of it rather successfully over the years, and not just in CM. Perhaps the other side of the advice equation isn't as brilliant as it would like to be.

A wise man once noted that the first thing to do is to throw away conceit. Because nobody can learn anything he thinks he already knows. And your posts and attitude provide abundant evidence that you think you already know all sorts of things, that your own stated results prove you don't.

My diagnosis of your problem, both in CM play and in these posts, is the sin of pride, aka cockiness, aka not objectively assessing what you are doing and how normal it is for you to get stomped. I suspect things aren't going half as well as you think they are right before they go south on you - except in your own mind.

No, blaming unbalanced forces or bad breaks in map selection do not explain it. Pig headedness is a much more likely cause.

It is more common. It is more extreme. It is much more uniform in its effects. People suffering from it rarely know it. Their play fails to improve in any radical manner over time, despite many a "lesson". They are usually convinced they are great players, just beset by poor luck. I've seen it in CM, other wargames, in chess, in poker, and in serious matters as well as games. You show all the usual signs.

Taking the statement that your play is probably pig-headed, personally, would be another such sign of such learning-stopping conceit. The begining of learning better tactics is recognizing that your present ones are to blame for your defeats and self-proclaimed disillusionment, and your mixing of ego with objective analysis is the cause of their failure to reform sufficiently on their own.

In CM, such misassessments of the tactical state of the battle are unforgiving. They result in exactly the sort of phenomenon you have described. Meaning, an attack that goes south rapidly when the serious firefighting starts, by running too cockily into the buzz saw of intact enemy defenses.

I'll use your last example, because it is the one you've given the most information about. Here is how I read what you said about it, with my "magic secret special super cockiness-detector decoder ring", which I got out of a box of cracker jacks.

You are very impressed with how well you scout. This is proved by getting a platoon opposite the hill and spotting things, without being detected at all.

You are very impressed with your understanding of proper combined arms. This is proved by your delight in taking out AT guns with a light mortar FO.

You are very impressed with your understanding of clever exploitation of gamey aspects of CM. This is proved by your evident delight in pushing up one side with your flank covered by a bottomless pit. And your units selections, preference for mortars over other forms of artillery, etc.

You are very impressed with how well you understand the role of various unit types, especially crackers of defensive positions. This is proven by your delight in StuHs and Pioneers for main assaults. Your hair nearly stands on end over how well you understand keeping a reserve.

You are positively aglow with self-regard over your mastery of overwatch principles, with no less than 3 AFVs covering your probe from excellent positions, mutually supporting, with clear fields of fire onto the objective.

Everything was obviously perfect. You are obviously the greatest combined arms maestro since Erwin Rommel. Only Fionn, privately, might perhaps manage to teach you a tweak or two, but that is like saying water can be drawn from a rock by certain local potentates.

So why did it all fall apart in two minutes anyway? Obviously, nothing you did or forgot to do. It was an unfair map, since he got a bald top hill on one side that covered everything. Unit selection is ridiculously unfair and forces always unbalanced, because he took an ubertank. Your opponent practically cheated by taking a Jumbo. The game's random number generator smiled upon your foe, in the map he got and in results of fire. You know the gods of luck must exist, because they hate you.

Did you have to attack up the side with that hill? No, but the same hill created dead ground for you to use, and got you that far forward. Were you really unspotted in your approach? Evidentally not, considering the forces you met. Was the axis of attack any sort of surprise to your enemy? Sure, that is why he had 2 AT guns placed to cover the area. That means he had to know before you even hit "go" on turn 1.

Then your preliminary shelling - with relatively light stuff - KOed a point target or two, but little else. It also told the world you were coming - if he didn't already know. How prepared was the sector for your attack? You had an old M-10 sighting - which means a 76mm something, thus a shooter able to hurt all the armor you brought to the party. You then put all of said armor in LOS of the same hill - but even with 5 different heavy AT shooters, failed to secure side angle enough for any of them to have a flank shot on a single tank facing one direction.

You thought everything was going swimmingly, that the enemy was perfectly prepared in proper doctrinal fashion for your massive and overwhelming, brilliant blow (with pioneers no less). Your enemy, on the other hand, probably looked at the matter something like this.

"Well, he took out an AT gun, but he has expended half or more of two artillery modules doing it. At best a trade at attacker's odds, so no big loss there. My infantry is no worse than a little mussed hair. His infantry does not seem to be present yet in strength. But he's got the mother of all armor conventions moved to within LOS of my hill. One hunt command facing ever so carefully 'so', and he eats Jumbo plate, while I run the table. What's the downside? I might lose one tank. What's the upside? Total victory inside of two minutes."

Throw away conceit.

I have to admit, I just may frame this. I especially like that there was no math, but that's just me.

The part that I don't get is how Berkut can convince himself that he managed to scout without being spotted. Perhaps his enemy simply held their fire while his scouts were bumbling about? That's what I have my troops do when on the defensive...

[Caesar]

From what I have read, when you boil down all the various tactics suggested above, the key seems to be good recon. If you find his guns then you can kill them before they kill your tanks, find his infantry then you can kill them without so many losses, find the strong/weak points you can avoid the former and hammer the latter etc etc...

Now - here's the problem. How do you carry out recon when the visibility is bad. I am playing a battle currently where I can see only ~90m. 6 turns in I have seen absolutely nothing. Even if I do find him I am only likely to see a single unit. How do you counter this? :confused:

(PS If you see this post Mark, I hope you don't think this is cheating )

[Burma Doc]

Slow down, divide the battle and map based on size and number of turns. Go back and play traing battles that emphasise your weak points.