How do I fight a defensive battle effectively?

[rstyle]

Always enjoy reading your posts, Daz. One question please:

My units hold the line reasonably well during the day, good position well dug in, but when it's gone dark, they all go to bed and apparently enemy take the advantage and break my line. How do you defend at night? No rest? Put in reserve?

Thanks.

[dazkaz15]

ORIGINAL: rstyle

Always enjoy reading your posts, Daz. One question please:

My units hold the line reasonably well during the day, good position well dug in, but when it's gone dark, they all go to bed and apparently enemy take the advantage and break my line. How do you defend at night? No rest? Put in reserve?

Thanks.

Thanks mate [:)]

What do you mean by break the line?
Do you mean infiltrate the line unnoticed, then start to harass your rear areas, or do you mean they over run your front line positions, and break through?

If its strays in your rear area you are talking about then I use A Tp 32 Cav Recon Squadron, to find, and take them out. It consists of M8 Greyhounds primarily and has a good antipersonnel medium range firepower.
Just keep the enemy unit in range of the M8's but out of range of the enemy infantry.
Keep a mortar or smaller artillery unit on it as well until it disbands.
If it routs, and goes to ground in the forest or a village, then you will need to flush it out with an infantry Coy pulled from your reserves. Don't send your Greyhounds into close terrain or they will come of worse. Keep them at long range.
Because they are fast though they are ideal for making sure your lines of communications are clear, and for finding enemy in your rear areas.
If you are being over-run and they are breaking through, then you are probably not defending in depth.
This means that you place other units behind the front line in areas that are vital i.e. the roads through the forest, far enough back that they have time to dig in before the current front line unit gets pushed back.
The unit that gets pushed back then goes to the rear, where he then has time to dig in, and recover morale, before that one gets pushed back etc.
If you run out of road then you need to use a Bn in reserve, or make one up from alternate Coy's on less busy sections of the front to counter attack into the flank of the next attack, or preferably 2 Bn's from opposing flanks.
Wake your artillery up as well as soon as you see an attack coming in, at the vital road sectors of the front, and get them suppressed.

Edit:
Don't counter attack into the flanks late in the game when they are massed on the road, as they will have such a mass of fire there, that you will just get killed.
This only works early in the game when you only have an enemy Bn or Regiment on the road, but later in the game there will be an entire armoured Division there.
If this is the case then you will probably be better off pulling back, and defending the objectives, with delaying tactics.

[rstyle]

Thank you very much Daz, I've got infiltrated then overran and encircled... Nice move, AI! This is really helpful, I'll try it out.

Plus, just wondering shouldn't the resting units wake up automatically if see an attack coming? Or do I need give them a new order to do so? Is there an advantage to attacking resting defenders? If so should my defending units ever go to bed while on the front line?

[dazkaz15]

I don't know the stats for resting troops compared to awake ones to be honest.
I think it would be a good idea to make sure that any units that are in an important position, and an attack is imminent are awake. Remember to rest them when the crisis is over though or they will become exhausted.

I'm going to carry on the AAR a little bit to show you the counter attack into the flanks of that enemy formation.
More to follow when I get time.

[navwarcol]

Daz.. LOVE your AAR. A question.. is there any program you use to get those screenshots?

[dazkaz15]

ORIGINAL: navwarcol

Daz.. LOVE your AAR. A question.. is there any program you use to get those screenshots?

Thanks mate.
I use Photoshop.
To get a single image with multiple displays of unit info, and unit filters, I take multiple screenshots with the different attributes set, then I use a mask on each layer to reveal the portions that I need.
This keeps the image a bit tidier and saves having to post multiple images of the same thing, but with different filters.

You can see this in the image above where I have the deployment status displayed for the Allies, but the combat power for the Axis.
It also allows me to display multiple orders at the same time, but without the clutter of having every unit on the maps orders displayed, the same applies to command lines.

It still gets messy at times, and I'm still experimenting on ways to clean it up.

[dazkaz15]

Another image to follow after this one when I get time.

[rstyle]

We should collect all your posts and make a book!

Plus, why both of them use left echelon formation? And the route setting applies to the route to FUP, right?

[dazkaz15]

ORIGINAL: rstyle

We should collect all your posts and make a book!

Plus, why both of them use left echelon formation? And the route setting applies to the route to FUP, right?

Don't think it will make the best sellers list though, but thanks [:)]

They are in left echelon so that they have max fire power, and defence to the left and front of their formation.
If you look at where I placed the attack marker you will see why I used that formation.

The route is for the march to the FUP yes.
During the assault they always take the shortest path.

I will do a slide on the Echelon formations, when I have time.

[dazkaz15]

next

[dazkaz15]

Bug?

[dazkaz15]

Defend order route movement bug V 4.5.264

[rstyle]

Daz, I'm not sure if Dave is following this thread, maybe you should start a new one in the Tech Support.

[dazkaz15]

ORIGINAL: rstyle

Daz, I'm not sure if Dave is following this thread, maybe you should start a new one in the Tech Support.

Thanks mate, but he knows where to find it when he has time, because I sent a link to this thread in the email I sent to support@panther.

Remember he is still recovering from a hand injury at the moment, and I expect still trying to get back to normal after his daughters injury/illness.

I'm sure he will look into it when he gets time, we just need to cut him some slack during these difficult times he is going through at the moment.