Defending All Over my head...

[photon]

A lot of the thinking in the Preview thread is way over my tactical pea-brain.

This is a summation of my little thinking on defense. The key to defending well is to exploit the advantages of the defender to overcome the numerical superiority of the attacker. The advantages of the defender are:

1. He should get to shoot first

2. Foxholes

3. TRPs

4. TRPs

Number One is pretty self explanatory - you get off the first shot in the majority of situations unless the attacker is firing blind. If he is that suits me fine. When he runs out of bullets for the infighting he will see the error of his ways. Of course, firing blind will be effective if your men are in obvious places. So the first rule:

Be somewhere he thinks you won't be.

Now, this rule has variations. If you can waste the attacker's effort by being somewhere he thinks you won't be, you can do that twice or three times! Move, fall back! Break contact and force the attacker to make it again. The defense that dosen't move is a poor defense indeed.

Number two again is pretty self explanatory. Each infantry unit gets a foxhole (or two) which can dramatically increase their life expectancy. How best to use these is more complicated. If you start your men at your main line of resistance when they fall back you lose the advantage of the foxholes you have dug. Dig two rows. One as a secondary line of resistance, and another as an intermediate line.

We're going to get some Triplex Acies Action Going. The Roman Triplex Acies was a formation of three lines. The first was engaged in active fighting, the second was a reserve for the first, and the third was a reserve for the second. When the men of the first line grew tired (stabbing barbarians gets old after a couple of hours) they would withdraw and a man from the second line would fill their place. When he got tired (or killed for that matter) the man who was in the third line moved up to take his place. The original fighter is now the second line. They rotated soldiers to keep fresh men in the fight.

You too can do this! Fall back your first line (no foxholes) to the third line and let the second line fight. Then when the second line begins to waver fall it back into the third line and advance the third line in counterattack! The thing to avoid is sitting there and slugging it out with the attacker. Rotate and move troops to both confuse him as to your strength and keep fresh men in the fight.

Another thing from the ancient world that you can use is the tactics of Hannibal at Cannae. The Romans pressed hard the middle of his men, only to have them rout and retreat. The Romans, heartened by this pressed their attack, filling the void between the flanks of Hannibal's army. When his center stopped it's ordered retreat and turned to fight the enveloped Romans were destroyed. If you fall back a part of your line that is pressed you can flank the attacker without moving any men! It's also very helpful to have a reserve to fill the gap between your line that retreats and the line that holds. This makes much more sense with pictures...

- Photon

[photon]

One of the things i've used a couple of times is to defend behind the VLs - when the attacker reaches them all he finds is a couple of TRPs - then the 105mm lovin' starts.

- Photon

[Guest Pillar]

I like your rotational reserve thinking. Have you seen the latest AAR Fionn is doing over at combathq?

Very similar, except he is talking about shifting reserves lateraly to react to what his SRE tells him. In that AAR he demonstrates two reserve levels: local (vicinity) reserves which can rotate quickly and overal battle reserves, which are basically vicinity reserves in areas where the attacker isn't attacking.

Your tactical brain isn't as pea-sized as you might think

[Banshee]

Originally posted by Pillar:

Have you seen the latest AAR Fionn is doing over at combathq?

The non updated, 5 turns in, 2 months old, AAR?

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Veni, vidi, panzerschrecki

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

You mention it soon after, but strangely you leave it out of your actual list of the defenders advantages. To me it is bigger than all of the above combined.

He doesn't know where you are. In moving to get to where you are, he should show himself first. Therefore, you should have a "sighting differential" in your favor - knowing more about where the attackers are, than he knows about where the defenders are.

You seem to fold this into "you should get to shoot first". But it is so much more than that. To me, the protection of foxholes (which is nice) and the presence of TRPs (which are fine, and I like mines too) are insignificant, compared to the power of the force... no, sorry, compared to the sighting differential!

"But how can I possible use a sighting differential? I mean, besides using to to shoot first." Breaths there a man with a soul so dead, he doesn't now a dozen ways to yarz somebody over with a sighting differential? OK, OK.

1. If he can't see you, he doesn't know where to put that fire mission.

2. If you can see him, you know where to put that fire mission.

Let's play - artillery tag! You're...it!

If you see him coming and there are covered routes, he might not see you going. Should his strongest force hit your reserve (hmm, that depends) or hit empty air (ahh, you mean there is a choice?)- decisions decisions.

I will give an example that admittedly includes a slight portion of "stupid AI trick" about it. The little Aachen scenario pits a U.S. company with support from a tank and a priest against 2 platoons of German ersztz infantry lamely supported by a single immobile anti-tank gun in the wrong place. But it is in the city, and the Germans are defending. There set up, it is true, is fixed and not-so-good. But they have decent platoon leaders and a number of snipers, MGs, and schreck teams.

Well, I decided quite early that the entire defense would be gambled on a single left hook. My forward teams, 1-2 men units, spotted his avenues of approach. In a city fight, MGs can fire down long avenues, so once a unit is committed to attacking along a certain block, it is not so easy for it to shift to a different one side-to-side. He committed strongly to coming along the eastern two blocks, supporting with his armor along that street.

While one MG dueled suicidally with his entire force to keep it out of that street, one of my infantry platoons, amounting to nearly half my available defenders, went a block west (away from his avenue of advance), two blocks north towards him, and back a block east again. Anatomy-to-the-wall into nowhere if my forward units and defender's sighting differential had not already let me scope it out. I could pick the moment for it, and decided soon was good because he wasn't there yet.

What possible benefit could I get from this lame little manuever? Just this. I was hiding in the backside of those buildings when his right flank cover on that side ran forward, and well forward of where I was expected, and where any of my fire was coming from. His right flank covering force died in the street outside, or in the buildings on either side immediately afterward.

And then I had a platoon in buildings at right angles to my original defensive line and a block-and-a-half ahead. Their fire beat the cross street he would have to cross to get into buildings close to my main position. As a stupid AI trick, some of his men actually tried it (bad move), which a human probably would not have done. His armor was in the wrong place to reduce this forward platoon, and the only long avenue on the map my fixed AT gun covered could keep them from getting too close - with some help on the forward or cross-street angle from shreck teams. (Otherwise put, the only *long range shot* at these flankers also meant long-range shots for my ATG).

Game over. Yes, his concentrated force managed to smash up about 20 men on my right while I was doing this, but his infantry were not going to get closer. My right-side defenders just fall back a bit when they need to, and his attack is gone. Elapsed time - 10 minutes. German losses - 30 guys out of 90. U.S. losses, around 100 out of 170, and no chance of getting to the hotel.

Was it because I was in foxholes? No. Because I have TRPs? No, I didn't even have a single indirect fire weapon, or any HE-firing weapon that could move or pick targets. Because I shot first? That might have accounted for 5 men on the long avenue of his main advance, nothing more. Instead, it was differential sighting plus an intelligent use of a reserve, with the attackers blundering onto them because -

he doesn't know where you are...

he doesn't know where you are...

he doesn't know where you are...

[photon]

I guess the whole he dosen't know where you are was the bold stuff I had going on. If you aren't where the attacker thinks you are he's in a boatload of trouble. You should know not only where the attacker is, but where the attacker thinks you are (and don't be there!) If he attacks in force into empty space and you appear on both of his flanks as arty starts to rain down, well, that's a beautiful thing to watch.

I think we're saying the same thing. You used forward manouvre to flank the attacker, I (generally) use rearward. The important thing is that the defender can steal the initiative from the attacker by being somewhere he shouldn't and counterattacking (or putting up stubborn resistance)

- Photon

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

Exactly, we are agreeing entirely. The point is to not just sit there and take it, but throw him a curve, exploiting how much easier it is to see him coming into your "hood" than it is for him to see you slinking around it with full knowledge of where he can and can't see you.

Anything he doesn't expect and can't see coming...

[Guest Pillar]

So then one might translate a principle of solid attack as:

"Know where your enemy is"