What do you do at night?

[Pergite!]

The Germans where not too keen on fighting during the nights on Crete. Anthony Beevor writes in his book about Crete that the germans felt rather uncomfortable with the dark, and I guess that that they had their reasons for it. They where in hostile and unknown terrian, while the allies and of course the locals know the ground very well. Besides that, the FJ´s in the first waves where totally exhausted and devestaded after the first days, so they needed all the rest they could get. After the tide had turn in their favour I would guess that they more likely wanted to take it safe because they had the time on their side. The allies where running, and mopping up is a risky buisness even during day hours.

Now to my question, how do you treat the dark hours of the day in the game?

I have found it rather usefull for the movement of blocking forces. I sneak them around the enemy positions and try to place them in a good defensive terrain. Then they rest up and fortify themselves during the early morning, and effectivly prevents enemy movements around them. Even better is to use the same force in the "anvil" role, and let another force (the "hammer") that has been resting during the night, push the enemy in front of them and squeese the routing troops between them.


So how do you others treat the night? Is it a friend or foe?

[HansBolter]

My night activities are determined as much by the expected duration of my operations as anything else.

Since we have complete psychic abilities as overall commanders in knowing exactly how long our operations will run, this is admittedly a bit artificial. It also depends a lot on whether I start the operations with all, or most, of my force in hand, or if they trickle in as a steady flow of reinforcements as with most of the paradrop scenarios.

If a scenario only lasts 3-5 days, and I am expected to cover substantial distances, then I am likely to push anywhere from a third to two thirds of my total force as near to the point of complete exaustion as I can manage. I will usually push on through the first night with at least a third to half of my force, while resting the other half to two thirds, so I can push the rested troops through the next night, in a sort of leapfrog manner. Paradrop scenarios facilitate this approach as troops landed today can push though the night, exhausting themselves, secure in the knowledge that tomorrows fresh reinforcements can be used to spell them.

In scenarios lasting 6-9 days, I tend to make a 3 day push as described above and then spend a night and the following day resting almost my entire force, pushing on only with a small force in the van, or clearing up bypassed pockets of resistance. I then use the night following the full days rest to maneuver into jump off positions for the next days resumption of the concerted assault.

With paradrop scenarios like Maleme, the onset of the first and usually the second nights will also find me making slight adjustments, issuing commands at a very low level, usually to companies consisting of divisional or corps assets, and even sometimes platoons detached from batallions, in order to close gaps in my established perimeter to prevent infiltrations that can become nuisances by the next morning.

[loyalcitizen]

Generally...
As soon as it turns actually dark, I set my arty to bombard themselves, with puts them to sleep 10 mins later. I wake them up usually a half hour before daylight.
I rest most of my frontline troops, or at least leave them on In-Situ.
If I have a unit in a precarious position, I will often give them marching orders an hour before nightfall, so they can vacate the area before midnight, under cover of darkness.
About the only units I'm not afraid to move at night are reinforcements who need to travel to get to the action.
 
I'm not a fan of night actions, and wish there was a way to simulate the problems/confusion through lack of interface features or something. Imagine the fun you'd have if a unit was randomly out of contact for 6 hours due to cut phone lines or loss of physical contact!
Doubt most players would want their game to be that real.

[06 Maestro]

There is a real problem with major night actions; heavy weapons units will have a drastically reduced range because of low visability, arty will have very few real targets, and those will be very close to freindly units, no air support, and last but not least, you units will be exhausted when daylight breaks.
If you have units to spare, sending a few out to maintain contact for harassment purposes seems like a good idea. In some circumstances, infiltration could be a good idea-so long as where they snuk to is not right into enemy gunsights when the sun comes up. Of course, if units cannot withdraw during daylight, a hectic night run would be in order-although I have not had too much luck with that recently.

If the enemy is already beaten, then I would maintain pressure through the night, as it would hurt them more than my side. But until that happens, I would not wear down my main forces by night combat. Fresh units from the rear should be able to move forward wothout too much ill effect-I do that on a regular basis.

[Pergite!]

ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro
If the enemy is already beaten, then I would maintain pressure through the night, as it would hurt them more than my side. But until that happens, I would not wear down my main forces by night combat. Fresh units from the rear should be able to move forward wothout too much ill effect-I do that on a regular basis.

I have a tendency to use at least one indirect fire unit to randomly harass enemy positions all through the night. In my mind that would lower the exhaustion recovery rate of the enemy units, dont know id it the works though.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro

There is a real problem with major night actions; heavy weapons units will have a drastically reduced range because of low visability, arty will have very few real targets, and those will be very close to freindly units, no air support, and last but not least, you units will be exhausted when daylight breaks.

This can be both a bane and a boon.

For lightly armed units like paras that can be very weak in heavy weapons and artillery suport, especially on the heels of the initial drop, before the support elements arrive, night can be not only an equalizer for them, it can give them the advantage.

They are elite troops, well trained and highly motivated, they can be counted on to perform better under the difficult conditions of night than the garrison troops they may be facing.

I never hesitate to use the cover of night to overwhelm my more heavily armed opponent with a paratroop close asault.

[06 Maestro]

ORIGINAL: Pergite!


[
I have a tendency to use at least one indirect fire unit to randomly harass enemy positions all through the night. In my mind that would lower the exhaustion recovery rate of the enemy units, dont know id it the works though.

It should work like that-I use that method also. You just have to have a real good idea where they may be at. So if the terrain does not give obvious choices, then it's recon time.

[06 Maestro]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter


They are elite troops, well trained and highly motivated, they can be counted on to perform better under the difficult conditions of night than the garrison troops they may be facing.

I never hesitate to use the cover of night to overwhelm my more heavily armed opponent with a paratroop close asault.

Good point; airborne operations are still "GreeK" to me.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: 06 Maestro

ORIGINAL: HansBolter


They are elite troops, well trained and highly motivated, they can be counted on to perform better under the difficult conditions of night than the garrison troops they may be facing.

I never hesitate to use the cover of night to overwhelm my more heavily armed opponent with a paratroop close asault.

Good point; airborne operations are still "GreeK" to me.

I guess the point I was really trying to make is that the choice for night operations is often force specific.

I would be far less likely to use a mechanized force at night, sacrificing the advantages of their heavy ranged firepower.

Paras, on the other hand, weak in heavy ranged firepower, need to close with the enemy to exploit thier forte, close assault. They can best do so, with less losses to the enemy's ranged fire advantages, under the cover of darkness.

[Arjuna]

re arty harassment fire at night. If the arty fire actually hits an enemy unit then yes it will suffer not only casualties and suppression but also it will interrupt their resting.

[MarkShot]

Hmm ... this seems like a juicy thread to jump into (although I've covered various night stuff in the Mini-Guide). However, I will say that I usually have my arty stand down at night.

Generally, your target portfolio goes way down at night. However, the "on call" AI will shoot at whatever it has reasonable confidence of actually being there. In my mind, you get the most bang for your buck in the daylight hours with a bigger portfolio especially with the clear and open terrain in COTA and with an FO in an elevated position. Of course, if I was in heavy contact at night that might be a different story, but often you run into the "friendlies in the way" restriction at such close range. Usually that's not the case for me, since I often use the cover of darkness to accomplish what I cannot do during the day. I hate the site of blood when you can get the same accomplished after the sun sets for few sprained ankles instead.

[jhdeerslayer]

Rest
Give orders for early AM attacks
Allow "safe" movement closer to enemy
Rest artillery too and/or move closer for better range as needed.

[Agema]

I use night to rest, mostly. The other thing I do is to move troops into new positions when I feel that movement in the daytime would get them pasted by enemy fire. That movement would generally be replacing a combat-shattered unit on the frontline with a fresh one, withdrawing from the frontline, or moving up to make an attack when daylight arrived.

[Lord_Stanley]

These are some really great tips guys. I'm looking forward to trying them out in my next game.

[Jakerson]

Well I smashed my friends lines pretty badly in one scenario where I played FJ and he was allied we skirmished whole day and I attacked him but he pushed me back but during night I march one battalion witch was totally rested from my reserve to his back. My battalion had to marching whole night as I took longest possible route to avoid all guard companies.

At first day of light my troops assaulted him from front and behind when he realize this it was too late as we played with maximum order delay. I was able to rock his depot and artillery that was resting pretty long time before he counter attacked to rear but same time my main attack started from his front. It was nice to kill his heavy artillery as it was caused me heavy casualties while I had only light artillery witch had bad ammo shortage. As result after massive fire fight half of his army surrendered.