Defending against artillery in a town

[Windopaene]

So in keeping with the other thread...

How does one defend against artillery? Specifically, if on the defensive side in an assult mission, in a town. You can have nice defensive positions, but once the arty starts falling, you're toast.

I'm playing in a couple of PBEM's where I'm defending, and I have a feeling I'm going to be seeing LOTS of arty. In one case a mirror game type situation where I used it very effectively on the attack, and I just know my opponent will be bringing it!

I guess the town part isn't that imperative actually. In any case where the big shells start falling, when defending, you pretty much have to abandon the position or die. So should I bug out quick and hope to move back in once it stops?

TIA for any ideas.

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

The interior parts of the buildings are somewhat safer. Ground floors are much better than top ones, except for a few spotters and the occasional MG to pin people down. Stone buildings are best, obviously.

If artillery starts landing around you, and its caliber isn't small (little brown holes not big black ones, small pops from 81mm, etc) then clear out. Don't waste time - use the "withdraw-run" command to eliminate the delay, and get well clear of the area. When the artillery stops falling, run back.

It is useful when setting up to forsee this sort of thing. Here are some tricks to help deal with it. First, units that set up outside of buildings will create a foxhole wherever you start them. So even if you plan to fight in the buildings, it can make sense to set up outside, and then move to your fighting positions at the begining. Slow MGs, you don't have to do this - just the fast guys. You can get more foxholes by splitting the squads at set up, then reforming them on the first turn by running them within 10 yards of each other.

Where do you want to put these 'holes? In secondary fighting positions, in bodies of woods, sometimes even in the open directly behind a building. Why the last? In case it isn't artillery, but a tank gun. Then instead of taking cover *in* the building, you put the whole building between yourself and the tank, and let him shoot an empty building if he likes.

Avoid putting a mess of foxholes in *front* of your building positions, though. Because the attackers can take cover in them, same as you can. For a similar reason, it is a good idea to put foxholes that you place in the woods, just far enough apart that they *can't* see each other (~28-30 meters usually works). That way, if someone captures one, he will have to leave it again to firefight the squad in the next hole.

You want to have the men not too bunched up, and you want them to be more spread when they run to their hole than when fighting in the buildings. That way even if the barrage shifts and gets some of them, most will not he hit.

Also, you want to place a few long-range weapons with good anti-infantry ability, either HMG teams or 20mm FLAK or 75mm Infantry guns (40mm AA for Allies works too), on the flanks of your main infantry position and well seperated from it. The idea is to cross their fires in front of the place you want to fight in. They can often buy you the time to race back to the buildings (or rubble) after a bombardment, by pinning men trying to reach the same spots from outside the town. By keeping them a ways out, you reduce the chances they will get knocked out by artillery, and the range will also tend to protect them from infantry hitting your center.

An AP minefield in front of the place you plan to defend, can also work. And last, two can tango, so you can try putting a TRP ahead of your position, and call for e.g. your mortar fire when he tries to rush into town behind his barrage. By the time he recovers from that, your men can be back in their firing positions ready to rock-n-roll again.

Defenders don't have to just sit there and take it.

[Dirtweasle]

Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

...For a similar reason, it is a good idea to put foxholes that you place in the woods, just far enough apart that they *can't* see each other (~28-30 meters usually works). That way, if someone captures one, he will have to leave it again to firefight the squad in the next hole.

B]

That makes perfect sense! Most often I learn something everytime I take the time to read some of these longer posts. Thanks.

In defending woods I had been trying to keep my squads "\\1 //\\ 2//\\ 3 //" so they would have overlapping fire to the front. But I can see there would be a benefit from having your fox holes out of LOS from each other. The tricky part is probably though the leaders commadn radius.

[Windopaene]

Thanks for the ideas guys. Think I got some of them in place, although I think I failed on some others. We'll see how it goes...

[Guest Pillar]

Well, I disagree with what Jason said about having your foxholes out of LOS from one another. That seems to me you are setting yourself up for a piecemeal defeat. The enemy will concentrate on one squad at a time and kill you that way. The only recourse is to drop artillery on him (which only lasts so long, and he'll go away and come back later) or to bring mobile reserves to help -- which nullifies many of your advantages as the defender. Why not have your foxholes (in the forests) prepared for all around defense in support of one another? That way, you have the support from ALL your squads AND the mobile reserves AND the artillery. Hopefully in this case he isn't even going to seize the first foxhole.

Just my take on it.

Also, why set up foxholes behind buildings? That defaults building cover to the attacker... but he would shell the building anyway you say? Then why even defend this building at all? What makes it worth your efforts?

Jason probably wouldn't make this mistake, but I see players defending buildings all the time which are of no value to the battle -- they just have a subconscious desire it seems to defend buildings. Be aware of that when you decide whether foxholes directly behind the building might perhaps be better served elsewhere.

- Adam

[This message has been edited by Pillar (edited 03-18-2001).]

[Wolfpack]

Originally posted by Pillar:

Well, I disagree with what Jason said about having your foxholes out of LOS from one another. That seems to me you are setting yourself up for a piecemeal defeat. The enemy will concentrate on one squad at a time and kill you that way. The only recourse is to drop artillery on him (which only lasts so long, and he'll go away and come back later) or to bring mobile reserves to help -- which nullifies many of your advantages as the defender. Why not have your foxholes (in the forests) prepared for all around defense in support of one another? That way, you have the support from ALL your squads AND the mobile reserves AND the artillery. Hopefully in this case he isn't even going to seize the first foxhole.

Just my take on it.

Actually, I think he was talking about setting up two lines of defense so if you get forced out of your first line, there's another behind you you can move into and maybe get a bit of time to get settled in (Thus placing them out of LOS of your first line) I could be wrong, but that's the way I understood him...just defense in depth.

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Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

[Guest Pillar]

Originally posted by Wolfpack:

Actually, I think he was talking about setting up two lines of defense so if you get forced out of your first line, there's another behind you you can move into and maybe get a bit of time to get settled in (Thus placing them out of LOS of your first line) I could be wrong, but that's the way I understood him...just defense in depth.

Ah perhaps you're right. I probably just misunderstood what he meant.

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

Not quite, either one. When you set your woods foxholes ~28 meters apart, then they are indeed out of LOS of one another. But this hardly means they can be "attacked piecemeal". The entire distance between then, except the last 2 yards, is in LOS of both. Where are the attackers supposed to be, such that they can hit one but not be hit by the other?

See, just because A can't see B, does not mean that C, who can see A, can't be seen by B. It doesn't work that way at all. All of your men might be able to see each other, and all of the enemy force could be able to see one of your squads, and that could still be the only squad that could see enemy. Being able to see each other, and being able to see the enemy, are two entirely different things.

What the placement avoids, is exactly a particular process of "piecemeal reduction" that can happen if you do put your foxholes in LOS of one another. That process is - attackers concentrate fire on A, and when it dies or breaks, they put a squad in A's foxhole. From that foxhole, they fire on B. Once B is reduced, they put another squad in B's foxhole. Etc. This process rapidly neutralizes the defender's 50% better cover from the foxholes. The attacker's face better cover only until the seize a foxhole.

But if the enemy has to *leave* A's foxhole to fire at B, etc, then in every case the defender's will have their cover advantage. The attacker may still try reducing them one at a time, of course. But he gains no cover edge by doing so, which he does get with the closer placement of the 'holes.

[grunto2]

one simple rule is to occupy each building with just 1 unit.

if the heavy stuff starts coming down, i'm not sure if i agree that trying to run is the best idea.

in any event cmbo is like a game of 'hammer, rock scissors' in this regard.

you can set your units up apart from each other, so large blasts don't effect multiple units, but that has its own set of drawbacks.

you can 'scrunch' the units together for maxiumin infantry-combat firepower but then they're more susceptible to the artillery you're tring to avoid; fire which every cmbo player is probably leery of to some degree.

personally, i stick to the 1 unit per building rule, and keep them spread out.

on a related subject, you want to occupy the interior buildings of a town, not the outlying ones; someone here alluded to that. aside from enemy artillery barrages, there is the problem of enemy direct fire at the outlying buildings of a town; direct HE fire collapses buildings into rubble very efficiently.

in any event, incoming heavy caliber artillery fire is not good.

you're pretty much hosed whether you stick around or try to run, at least in my experience.

one other thing you can do is to fight fire with fire; on defense, as part of your force buy a trp or two and some heavy artillery spotters.

if you put a trp at a likely enemy staging area or route of advance, and your opponent actually sets up or moves into that area, you can lay heavy artillery down 'from the get-go.'

if you guess right this could stop 'his' attack before it even gets started. it might even take out his heavy artillery FO(s). if you guess incorrectly, your defense will be that much weaker.

case in point: once a pbem opponent, as part of his force on defense bought a bunch of rocket spotters and some trps. my lightning cavalry advance foiled it that time. basically he guessed incorrectly as to my areas of setup and routes of advance, so the trps weren't in the right places.

he did take out a couple of m8 hmcs, but everything else was a disaster for him.

my jeep .50s quickly overran his 'FO nest.' they bagged something like 6 rocket FOs.

that sort of made up for the time i had umpteen 20mm AAs and 75mm recoilless, all limbered and in transport, and he hit me with airstrikes... probably 20 dead guns and kubelwagens... see, 'hammer, rock, scissors'

=grin=

andy

[Atlas]

Jason said:

"If artillery starts landing around you, and its caliber isn't small (little brown holes not big black ones, small pops from 81mm, etc) then clear out. Don't waste time - use the "withdraw-run" command to eliminate the delay, and get well clear of the area. When the artillery stops falling, run back."

Running around when indirect heavy ART starts to drop in force is one way to die quickly. I think what Jason means to say is that when the "first" spotting round of heavy ART drops, use the short time between then and when the rest of the rounds start to fall to get away.

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

No, even if it is already falling, unless it is light pop-gun stuff and you are in great cover, run like heck.

Yes, you are more vunerable to each shell when you are moving. But you get clear of the blast area quite fast, and not many shells fall in that period of time. The effect of still being in good cover, compared to running, is on the order of 2:1. But 2:1 for 15 seconds, is better than 1:1 for 2 minutes, 'cause two minutes is 8 times as long.

What will usually happen, is one of your units will get a shell going off nearby while trying to run, break, and go to ground. The others will get clear, sometimes with a lost man each, and usually needing to rally too, from "caution" or sometimes worse. The guys that hit the deck, will sometimes be ground to powder, or so thoroughly broken as to become useless. Other times the shells will happen not to be too close to them, and they will resume their run and get clear, but after losing half the guys or so.

The usual result when you run, therefore, is the loss of a squad, sometimes less than a squad, with a reduced platoon able to function again in a couple of minutes. Sometimes it will be worse, sure, and you will be left with half a platoon 5 minutes on.

But when you don't run, unless it is light stuff, the usual result is everybody broken, everybody half-squaded. It takes a long time to recover, and the unit cannot really hold the spot despite remaining on it. In fact, they are exquisitely vunerable to a charge right when the barrage ends, which is up to the enemy and unknown to you.

I'd far rather have a functioning near-platoon 200 yards to the rear, able to maneuver forward or to a flank of the original position the moment the barrage lifts, than a vunerable set of broken wrecks right in the path of the enemy's planned attack, at the same moment in time.

Try it. You may be surprised how well the men hold up when they run, compared to trying to ride it out in their holes. Obviously, the longer the barrage the better "run" works, compared to sit still.

[Windopaene]

Well in one of my two defense PBEMs, the first spotting round has just fallen, so we'll see how it goes. I'd go into further detail, but I know my opponent reads the forums...

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All your w00t are belong to maximUS_2k

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

You can get more foxholes by splitting the squads at set up, then reforming them on the first turn by running them within 10 yards of each other.

I recently got the CM CD after a long out-of-stock wait. I had no trouble getting split squads to rejoin in the Demo but am finding it a real ordeal to rejoin them with the new version of CM--to the point where I've pretty much abandoned splitting squads. Is this just me or have other people observed this? If so, can you suggest any fixes?

I also have a lot of trouble mounting AT guns for towing to new locations. So once their positions are known, they're pretty much toast for enemy arty. Any tips?

[This message has been edited by CombinedArms (edited 03-22-2001).]

[This message has been edited by CombinedArms (edited 03-22-2001).]

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

A fine question, I am sure others have had the same issue.

The distance is 10 meters now. I think it was 15 meters back in the version that is as old as the demo. You won't see them consolidate until the end of the turn - next orders phase. Don't order them to move right on top of each other, just nearby.

As for the hook-up of guns, it can take a little getting used to, sure. Move the vehicle as close to the gun as you can, but not onto it. Give the gun its order to "embark" toward/onto the vehicle, in the same turn the vehicle is pulling up. The gun will start moving as soon as the vehicle stops, and if it is close enough it will hook up right away, with no slow pushing to get closer.

One useful trick is to click on the unit, set the waypoint approximately, and then hit "5" for the close-up overhead view. You will have a white square waypoint box for the end of the move. You can grab that box with your mouse and drag it around to just where you want it, then let it go.

I hope this helps.

[CombinedArms]

Belated thanks, Jason, for the lucid and detailed explanations. I think I've been ordering my split squads too close together.

[mPisi]

CombinedArms: One other thing, make sure you are rejoining the two halves of the same squad. B-1a goes with B-1b, etc...

One thing that bugs me in the setup phase is that you can't rejoin squads, if you make a mistake on who to split and don't have foxholes or don't want to take the morale penalty.