Comment re defender fireplan initial barrage

[Fletch]

I'm not sure it was intentional but it appears the AI defender (at least) can use pre-plot fire on the first turn to saturate the attackers set-up concentrations (i.e. assembly areas).

Now I would have a big beef with this, except that it appears that the AI defender gets to steal a march here because it gets "instant" information on the attackers first turn setup and then can "instantly" call in as much "fireplan" arty as it wishes.

Now hosing down assembly areas with artillery fire is a well known tactic at the grand tactical level (it was used very effectively by the Russians at the beginning of Citadel for example.) however it seems rather dubious at the tactical level of CMBB because it assumes the defender has a-priori knowledge of the set-up of the attacker. Certainly true sometimes, but not always. Because of that I think its a bit doubtful to allow that carte-blanche for the defender in CMBB. My 2 cents.

At any rate, something to think about.

(Love the game btw.)

[Guest Mike]

This was commented on in the Demo.

IIRC the consensus then as the defender should get to allocate a fire plan BEFORE the set-up phase if they want, the attacker AFTER.

This allows the defender to gues where to shoot, while the attacker gets to "see" any visible defences.

[Nidan1]

I played a scenario where this happened. I had half tracks lined up on a road. Arty pasted the road on the first turn. I restarted the game, but moved my assests off the road onto the steppe along side it. Again arty pasted the road, pretty much the same place. Maybe the designers set it up that way. I am now moving my setups off the easist areas of advance to avoid this. Makes for more interesting planning on initial set up.

[Fletch]

Reminds of the the Quote from Repo Man, "It's all part of the plan." If this was intentional it makes it a bit rough on the attacker I would think and also of course makes dispersal (and being out of sight) pretty essential.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Nidan1:

I played a scenario where this happened. I had half tracks lined up on a road. Arty pasted the road on the first turn. I restarted the game, but moved my assests off the road onto the steppe along side it. Again arty pasted the road, pretty much the same place. Maybe the designers set it up that way. I am now moving my setups off the easist areas of advance to avoid this. Makes for more interesting planning on initial set up.

It makes a great deal of sense to me that a defender would saturate an obvious line of advance for an attacker. Also that he would hit any units visible at the beginning of the first turn. What would start to make me nervous would be if he only and always hit my units no matter where I put them even if they began out of LOS of his.

Michael

[Nidan1]

That is basically what I was alluding to in my previous post. It seems that when playing the AI in a canned scenario, the designer has built in an initial arty barrage that hits a pre-determin ed area. Now the designer, knowing where everything will be initially can make things pretty dicey this way.

In the future, when playing the AI, I will always move my assests away from the obvious start route, or set them to fast move and hope they can out run the barrage.

[Cameroon]

I've only been subjected to one AI prep-barrage and that was in the demo when I'd set up my troops in too visibly a manner. That seemed entirely fine to me, now I don't set up where I can be seen unless I'm feeling like taking some quick casualities.