Artillery on defense

[robot]

I play long campaign a lot. Like the career soldier idae a lot. I have a lot of defend missions. I limit myself to 2 batt of 150s plus 1 of 105s. After i have seen there mass attack point i begin to plot my arrty. Of course i hope they are near my pre plotted zones. Say the mass of troops are coming in left of center. They are still 10 hexes out from my mine fields. I will lay smoke with 105s 3 to 5 hexes in front of them. My 150 then begin to lay a barrage up to 3hexes behind what i can see to 2 hexes in amongst them on the back line of troops. They must come forward or retreat if my 150s are doin the job. As they are comin out of the smoke they will now be 2 to 3 hexes away from my mine field. I continue to move my smoke closer to my mine field and my 150s forward 1 hex at a time over a period of 4 to 5 turns. As my foront line is any where from 3 to 5 hexes behind the mine field, by the time they are in the mine field my 88s and 150 sigs are taking heavy dam on ther front lines. Seems to work for me dont know bout others.

[panda124c]

Originally posted by robot
I play long campaign a lot. Like the career soldier idae a lot. I have a lot of defend missions. I limit myself to 2 batt of 150s plus 1 of 105s. After i have seen there mass attack point i begin to plot my arrty. Of course i hope they are near my pre plotted zones. Say the mass of troops are coming in left of center. They are still 10 hexes out from my mine fields. I will lay smoke with 105s 3 to 5 hexes in front of them. My 150 then begin to lay a barrage up to 3hexes behind what i can see to 2 hexes in amongst them on the back line of troops. They must come forward or retreat if my 150s are doin the job. As they are comin out of the smoke they will now be 2 to 3 hexes away from my mine field. I continue to move my smoke closer to my mine field and my 150s forward 1 hex at a time over a period of 4 to 5 turns. As my foront line is any where from 3 to 5 hexes behind the mine field, by the time they are in the mine field my 88s and 150 sigs are taking heavy dam on ther front lines. Seems to work for me dont know bout others.

I never use smoke in defends, just makes it harder to kill and provides cover for their engineers. Artillery engages at max range, to break up the infantry attack, then AT guns at max range to kill tanks, then tanks and MGs at close range (enemy in the mine fields) then infantry as they come out of the mine field (they rarely make it this far except when vision is very limited).

[WhiteRook]

While normaly I would concur with pbear, I must admit that your choice of tactics is intreaging!

[Capt. Pixel]

I use smoke in the defensive posture to limit the Assaulting players range of visibility.

A smoke wall a few hundred meters away from my defensive line reduces his ability to fire at my positions at longer ranges. I only find this useful if the visibility is already 500-600m or more. Anything shorter and my smoke just tends to get in my own way.

But, clear air on my side of the line is essential to my being able to pin down his assault. And my PBEM opponents know this, so they'll generally smoke-up the whole friggin' map anyway.

The other school might say that plenty of smoke is going to appear on the battlefield as the battle progresses. Why bother adding your own?

[RayM]

For Guadalcanal Campaign Battle 2.

I just discovered the benefits of laying smoke between attacking JA units and those hidden in the tree line trying to attack Henderson Field. The smoke prevented JA units in the tree line from adding their fires to the attack. The units tried to Banzai toward the VHs and as they came out of the smoke piecemeal, I was able to isolate them and destroy them or push them back with well-placed crossfires. After a couple of turns, the Banzai fizzled out. Of course, it took me a couple replays to finally figure it out. Before then, it was touch-and-go with alot of USMC caualties at the airfield.

[ZoomBoy27]

Yes, robot's methods do sound interesting. Several steps above my "Ooops, I forgot to plot anything, where are my 80mm mortars to cover my ***. Please, enemy, keep still so I don't have to think too far ahead. Friendlies, start digging slit trenches 'cuz it's going to be close."

I'm just planning my defend in MC:LV Dubno area so I'll print out a copy of this for my perusal. My last battle was a draw with my morale broken; I'm gettings some tough comments from the Chief of Staff.


ZoomBoy
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