De-entrenching the enemy

[samba_liten]

Lately i have suffered turn burn in my games, ending up with only one round. I suspect this is because i have (inadvertently, of course) given the enemy time to entrench. How do i best go about remedying this?

The first thought that springs to mind is artillery and air-strikes before the assault. How well does this work, and how long (how many rounds) does it take in your experience?

[Silvanski]

Using artillery and air strikes first can indeed help. Make sure to use arty units which have not moved in order to have a fair chance of executing a ground assault on the enemy positions. 

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Silvanski
Using artillery and air strikes first can indeed help. Make sure to use arty units which have not moved in order to have a fair chance of executing a ground assault on the enemy positions. 

I agree. Also, I've found in my current FITE game that I have to make a strike with a single aircraft on average twice to unentrench an arty tube OR one strike with more than one aircraft......depending of course on what else is in the target hex. The more stuff your opponent has in a hex the more there is to take on their share of the "attack load" if you get my drift. You the attacker have a certain number ( AP strength and / or AT strength and / or both ) that you get to "spend" in the target hex and the opponent has whatever in the hex at the time that you the attacker can "buy" from so that at the end of the day the finding is that the more equipment in the hex means that a lessor proportion is lost from the opponent's pool of equipment. Whoa. Long sentence.

[samba_liten]

Thanks. 

[Panama]

According to the manual, the bigger the shell the better job of unentrenching a unit.

[ColinWright]

My own impression has been that aircraft don't do much to unentrench defenders. For that, you need artillery.

[samba_liten]

Thank you again.
And yes, aircraft don't seem to have much effect at all.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm using airstrikes to unentrench the enemy arty tubes so they don't fire.  Seems to be working after about two strikes.

[samba_liten]

Larry, does that work even if the arty is in tactical reserve?

[Telumar]

Good question!

[ogar]

Well, I do not know about air strikes, but I can confirm that artillery strikes will knock units out of TR. Damn you and your K18s, Telumar !

And as above, it depends -- some of the artillery strikes have knocked my artillery out of TR or D status; other times, what seem to me as stronger strikes, do not.

So, I expect _some_ of my D or TR artillery to get knocked out each turn. (I use TR mostly when I am trying to conserve supply while putting out some support.)

[Telumar]

Then this is answered, too. I also didn't know.

Yeah, Kesselring is very pleased - and these were only the 10,5 cm pieces. Eagerly awaiting the 17 cm K18s...

What about your 155mm Long Toms?

[PRUSSIAN TOM]

Good advice. Hope no one minds if I take this free advice and see if it helps me out. Hope there are no patent lawyers lurking out there. [X(]

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: ogar

Well, I do not know about air strikes, but I can confirm that artillery strikes will knock units out of TR. Damn you and your K18s, Telumar !

Sorry to interrupt but, is this a bug? Perhaps it is something that needs to be brought to Ralph's or Bob's attention for verification.

[Telumar]

ORIGINAL: Panama

ORIGINAL: ogar

Well, I do not know about air strikes, but I can confirm that artillery strikes will knock units out of TR. Damn you and your K18s, Telumar !

Sorry to interrupt but, is this a bug? Perhaps it is something that needs to be brought to Ralph's or Bob's attention for verification.

No.

The other way around it would be a bug. Why would anyone bother digging in artillery when you never can be pushed out of TR?

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: Telumar

ORIGINAL: Panama

ORIGINAL: ogar

Well, I do not know about air strikes, but I can confirm that artillery strikes will knock units out of TR. Damn you and your K18s, Telumar !

Sorry to interrupt but, is this a bug? Perhaps it is something that needs to be brought to Ralph's or Bob's attention for verification.

No.

The other way around it would be a bug. Why would anyone bother digging in artillery when you never can be pushed out of TR?

"Artillery can lower the effectiveness of prepared defensive positions
during combat. The effect is intended to model the earthchurning
tendencies of heavy Artillery and is tied to the weight
of individual shells. Heavier pieces are much more effective than
lighter pieces. MRL’s (Multiple Rocket Launchers) generally do
not receive this advantage. While the Anti-Personnel strengths
of heavy Artillery may seem weak (due to very low rates of fire),
weapons of 150mm or larger can be very effective against entrenched
enemies."

It says nothing about tactical reserve. Only units in defensive positions which are defending, entrenched or fortified. This is why I asked if it might be a bug or unintended 'feature'.

[ogar]

Panama,

Yours is a good question, but I think you are reading something into the documentation.

Artillery (and air) can reduce the level of digging in/entrench/fortified. But that is on top of the effect it has just shelling/bombing the units in the hex. If units are not in D/E/F mode, they are open to more losses; what the shelling/bombing can do, if they are in DEF is first reduce the level of entrenchment, and secondly reduce their effectiveness.

When a unit is in TR and is hit, what I see is similar to a unit in Mobile mode being hit -- there are possible equipment/troop losses; the unit tries to defend so supply and readiness decrease; and somehow, someway, sometimes, a unit in TR _may_ go into Mobile mode because of the effect of the shelling.

From a recent turn, Telumar shelled several of my artillery positions as prep for his assault. On one hex, he knocked 2 units plus an HQ all out of D mode, reduced supply/readiness for all 3, and dropped ent level by a smidge. On another hex, he shelled 1 arty unit in TR, and did not knock it out, but only reduced supply/readiness somewhat. (I am reading off the PBEM sitrep, so i do not know exactly which shelling reduce how much supply where and how much was used before the 'fatal' hits in D mode for hex 1 -- so this is partly guesswork.)

Short answer, artillery units in TR can get knocked out of mode by shelling. But then again, only a dope like me would set artillery units in TR on purpose going into the other guy's turn -- because I want to save a little on supply usage. If I did a better job on managing supply, I would just dig the units in. And make my opponent work harder at reducing them.