How can I limit losses ?

[nukkxx5058]

Hi, Could someone share some tactics on how to limit losses ?
I just play "Time To Dance" with the Soviets and I had a lot of losses. I finished at cca 38% while NATO-AI was even worse below 30%. My T-80s were falling like flies
Thx

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: nukkxx

Hi, Could someone share some tactics on how to limit losses ?
I just play "Time To Dance" with the Soviets and I had a lot of losses. I finished at cca 38% while NATO-AI was even worse below 30%. My T-80s were falling like flies
Thx

I've tried that one twice from the Soviet side, once as NATO.

On first run, I lost 50+% of the Soviet force and NATO went below 30%, second time I ended with 65% of the Soviet force and my HR report looked pretty good [8D]

What I varied - once the battle line is joined, get the recon assets out of the main fire line, out on flanks or tuck back into safety - they are just VPs waiting to be gobbled;
Keep the MRR back,too vulnerable early on;
Take your time on the approach I did 3-4 turns of fast move to my jumping off positions and then held everything and juggled to an assault formation (there is quite a bit of broken ground you can hide in);
When ready shifted the Artillery mission from CB/on call and put down the limited smoke to cover one axis of advance, and then assigned one artillery unit to support the lead unit of each tank regiment (that seemed to mean that support fire hit the American unit doing the most damage - not the one I most fancied attacking)

Once I have 4 T-80 cos over the river (and 2 back as reserves) then commit the MRR, as that arrives moves one of the Tank regiments forward.

Second time I got lucky with air support and it got lucky with the Abrams. But I do think getting near your jump off line and then a rush with the T-80s seems to be the safest way over the river - crudely, you have more than the Americans can shoot at.

Edits - the less obvious artillery missions - on call/in support - are often the most useful; also slowly appreciating the key difference between assault and the slower of the 2 move orders

[cbelva]

ORIGINAL: loki100

ORIGINAL: nukkxx

Hi, Could someone share some tactics on how to limit losses ?
I just play "Time To Dance" with the Soviets and I had a lot of losses. I finished at cca 38% while NATO-AI was even worse below 30%. My T-80s were falling like flies
Thx

I've tried that one twice from the Soviet side, once as NATO.

On first run, I lost 50+% of the Soviet force and NATO went below 30%, second time I ended with 65% of the Soviet force and my HR report looked pretty good [8D]

What I varied - once the battle line is joined, get the recon assets out of the main fire line, out on flanks or tuck back into safety - they are just VPs waiting to be gobbled;
Keep the MRR back,too vulnerable early on;
Take your time on the approach I did 3-4 turns of fast move to my jumping off positions and then held everything and juggled to an assault formation (there is quite a bit of broken ground you can hide in);
When ready shifted the Artillery mission from CB/on call and put down the limited smoke to cover one axis of advance, and then assigned one artillery unit to support the lead unit of each tank regiment (that seemed to mean that support fire hit the American unit doing the most damage - not the one I most fancied attacking)

Once I have 4 T-80 cos over the river (and 2 back as reserves) then commit the MRR, as that arrives moves one of the Tank regiments forward.

Second time I got lucky with air support and it got lucky with the Abrams. But I do think getting near your jump off line and then a rush with the T-80s seems to be the safest way over the river - crudely, you have more than the Americans can shoot at.

Edits - the less obvious artillery missions - on call/in support - are often the most useful; also slowly appreciating the key difference between assault and the slower of the 2 move orders

Very good advice on tactics. Thanks loki

[Mad Russian]

This is very much a two headed answer. What to do for NATO player and what to do as the Soviet player.

For NATO, you are going to have to do a lot of planning. If you move it after contact, you lose it if you are still in contact. Check your artillery support first. See what they can do to help the units/situation in the trouble. If you can get minefields in your support mix you are way ahead of the game. Mines do two things.

1) They kill units that enter them. A chokepoint is a great place for these.
2) They hold up the movement of the Soviet forces if you can place it in a chokepoint.


For Soviet, you need to get as close as you can, as fast as you can. NATO is designed from the ground up to fight long range. Since that's what they want to do, it's exactly what you don't want to do. As has been pointed out, keep your infantry in the back until the defense is hammered. The God of War lives in the Soviet combat formations.

FIRE THAT ARTILLERY!! EVERY TURN!!! AT SOMETHING!!! Multiple Rocket Launchers are a tremendously useful suppression weapon.

For either side:

Any trucks you find HIT THEM WITH ARTILLERY!!! These units are very likely HQ's. Hit his HQ's as often as you can. This will up his command cycle time frame and slow down his command cycle. That is tremendously helpful for you.

These are some very basic tactics.

Hope this helps.


Good Hunting.

MR

[nukkxx5058]

Thanks guys, very interesting. This shows the incredible potential of the game.
Will try again and again until I find the tactics that work best with me.

[GloriousRuse]

For the vast majority of Pact offensive operations you limit losses through mass, suppression/disruption, and speed. The ASSAULT order is one of your most useful commands.

MASS: Once you pick a spot to hit, don't piddle around piece-mealing your combat units. Throw a good 40+ vehicles into the attack and smash into your target. This allows you to cross NATO's range advantage once with a large force rather than several times with small forces, limiting the "free" kills NATO will get. Secondly, it means that you will fire back plenty as units expose themselves against your lead elements, which will suppress and degrade them as you close the distance. Finally, it ensures that in the killing ranges (under 4 hexes) you will have enough vehicles left to win the brutal close range firefight that develops.

SUPPRESSION: Use artillery. Tons of it. It will noticeably attrit infantry, and at the very least rapidly drop the readiness of NATO units to where their positional and range advantage will mean very little as they fire infrequently and inaccurately until your in knife fighting distance. A tweak on this is using a mass of attack helicopters (if you have them) to break up the formation ahead of time. A massed Hind attack immediately prior to your ground force entering the killing zone will often kill a boatload of vehicles, cause units on screen orders to move out of firing positions, and generally sow chaos. If you can time it so the hinds hit right as your moving into the long range zone, even better...most of those pesky ATGM launching vehicles will be busy shooting at the Hinds, and the tanks will generally be fleeing for their lives. You may also consider mass smoke screens.

SPEED: MOVE DELIBERATE and you are not friends...this is a massive departure from the NATO mentality. MOVE HASTY up to the last concealed position, then ASSAULT. Don't be afraid to use it for long distances. Besides limiting the time you are being shot at outside your effective range, this is one of the ways you can make up for usually having a slower C2 cycle...which in turn allows you to generate fights against NATO on the move rather than having to grind through layers of pre-emplaced defenses. Finally, it prevents NATO from disengaging and ensures that they don't have time to resupply and reorganize.

..................

All of which comes down to you having to make four or five big choices in a game, and commit to them fully. You don't have the luxury of a NATO commander to constantly re-evaluate and adjust. Your art is creating a situation so unwinnable that the NATO commander is using his cycles to re-arrange deck chairs on the Titanic.

[Mark Florio]

My favorite NATO tactics are as follows:

1) Use Recon a lot! Send those eyes out far and into the flanks. find and fix the Soviet attack columns, then pull back and shadow and report. Don't use recon to engage until the end of the scenario perhaps when then can ID and attack an HQ or Arty.

2) Set up your defense in echelon with key emphasis on high speed avenues of approach (Soviets will follow the roads for speed). Mix up your tanks and infantry into combined arms teams,...i.e. putting an Abrams platoon with an infantry company and vice versa. Use the Brads for their long range TOW's and the Abrams to kill everything. Be prepared to pull back after a brief encounter to preserve forces. (Arty usually comes if they ID a strong point). Displace to secondary position.

3). Use FASCAM mines to shut down roads that travel through deep woods. The Soviet columns will be stopped and you can defend these choke points with Arty and dismounts easily. Prepare to keep one main avenue open for the Soviets and channelize them into a kill-sack, where you have your main forces, in echelon, covering the kill sack from different angles. Put these forces into Hold and they will dig in. Make sure your LOS has been checked for each unit!

4). Keep Mortars up close to your front to ensure that they can respond and disrupt any forces that get into the mine fields.

5). if you have Helo's. keep the gunships far back behind a ridgeline until ready for use. Keep the Kiowas closer to the front but not too close yet. Once the battle starts to commence, mark where the enemy ADA is located and then route your Kiowa's away from them but deep into the enemy flank and rear. This is a good time to start hitting enemy columns and choke points with Arty. If you see any trucks, hit them hard as they will be HQ,...same with arty.

6). Kill enemy Recce early. poke his eyes out but preserve your own Recce carefully.

7). When enemy columns start to enter kill sack, be sure to rotate hard hit units back to re-supply!. The last thing you want is to run out of ammo just when the main force of T80's enters kill sack! Keep at least 1 company of Armor in reserve to counter attack locally where needed, but not too early and not when the enemy HINDS are present! Once the enemy loses a majority of forces or when your defenders are attrited, then release the counter attack and assault into his columns.

8). I usually keep my arty on C for one battery, O for a second and the third I direct the barrage usually when I find their choke points. Avoid trying to catch a fast moving column with arty but focus on long columns of vehicles that are stalled, in an obstacle or under fire. A good arty salvo can stop an attack cold. Make sure that you rotate each battery through resupply every so often to ensure that you don't run out at the critical moment!

9). Attack helos are your ace: You can use them from long distance to pick off targets early and then they retreat to rearm. As long as they are far away from the ADA you should be fine...or you can use them at a pivotal moment in the battle. I like to have them attack at the same time that my armor reserve is attacking to mass forces, them I pull them back quickly.

10). With NATO, the ADA is not so effective but I usually keep them close to the front. When I see the Soviet HELO strike, I usually rush them to the spot and let them take out a few helos, while usually dying in the process. Not much else to do but hope that your Brad's and the Abrams .50 take out enough to blunt the attack.

Finally: I always prepare a counter attack and defend in depth with fall-back options to preserve my key forces. Use infantry in woods where they are tough to dislodge and know that you will likely lose all of your APC's if you encounter tanks. Also, make sure that your forces are always within HQ distance to keep their effectiveness up.

[CapnDarwin]

ADA is fixed and working much better in 2.03. That should help out on both sides but make helo's and CAS deal with a higher pucker factor.

[jenrick]

For the WP:

Mass. You have lots of well armored, heavily armed tanks. Use them. A bunch of BMP's and BTR's is nothing but target practice for even platoon Bradleys. 10 T-80's on the other hand can knock out a full strength platoon of M1A1's if employeed correctly. You can use your numbers advantage to conduct a very effective overwatch as well. 20 T-80's WILL win a gunnery duel with 8 M1A1's if there's no artillery smoke involved. There aren't that many good vantage points at the main crossing points, mass your tanks to shoot down whatever force is trying to contest the crossing from those vantage points.

Momentum. As noted above, assault is your friend. Stay in close contact with the NATO units and you will roll over them.

My general strategy for the WP is to move an entire tank regiment to each crossing point, and have them move into their overwatch hexes at the same time. If nothing else the NATO players units will run out of ammo trying to deal with that many hard targets at once. I pressage this with hammering the tree line overlooking bridges with artillery. That is the most advantageous terrain to the defender in the area, deny it to them.

I use one of the tank units to bridge the river, and then assault across into the NATO defensive positions. The closer you are to the NATO units the more effective your tanks are. Once they're out of the good defensive terrain, you can advance at your own pace to capture the VP locations.

The key to this strategy for the WP is to get the tanks out in front and into good overwatch positions early. NATO does not have enough units to win a gunnery duel across the river if they are facing the WP's mass of tanks. Using artillery can deny them access to their best defensive terrain to contest the crossing allowing you to get across relatively unscathed.

[jenrick]

For NATO:

You have a range advantage, and in general can inflict a lot of casualties if you can get the WP in disadvantaged terrain. Get units into the tree line over looking the bridges as soon as practicable, combined with dropping what bridges you can. The WP will hammer the tree line as soon as you reveal you have units there. Lucky for you M1A1's dug in are fairly artillery resistant.

Remember that this force would have been nothing more than a speed bump/trip wire. They aren't even really expected to make it back. Every minute they can tie the Red army is one more minute to get ready to face the red horde. Screen and the like is a great way to preserve your forces in being, but it's a horrible way to slow the WP down. An M1A1 platoon in Hold will eventually die, but it will take a great many Russian tanks with it. That is what is needed in this scenario.

If you can manage to get 3 platoons along the tree line in Hold, you will probably win the scenario with at least a tactical success. Put your mech infantry in Bad Neustadt in Hold as well. The WP will probably not be able to force you out of the tree line without sustaining critical loses. The mech infantry can hold against tanks well enough to probably force SD and end the scenario. Keep feeding units to tree line as you can to shore up the fire that will keep the WP from breaking through. If you can put smoke down at the bridge crossings, all of your anti armor weapons can target through it. The WP tanks are SOL.

As stated above, your units are going to die, but hopefully in a very hard way. Their job is to buy the rest of NATO enough time to get ready for inevitable breakthrough. There's no way to stop them at the border, just slow them enough to be able to have shot at stopping them further in country.

-Jenrick

[jds1978]

Try to make initial contact with as small a recon force as possible....their job is to spot the enemy and figure out his dispersal. Once you have an idea as to where your opponent is, hit him with your tank forces followed up by mobile infantry. Before you begin an advance, make a mental note of the terrain: where is it likely you are going to get stuck in kill zones? are there more protected axis of advance available? Remember that the modern battlefield is extraordinarily lethal

For the WARPAC forces stick to the idea of 'a simple plan, violently executed.' Don't chase tactical opportunities at the expense of the mission. Your main maneuver group is the battalion/regiment level.

For NATO, use your better gunsights and weapons systems for long range kills. Look for the most ideal killing ground and lay traps. Don't let the PACT get close to you (<1500m). Your main maneuver force is the company/battalion level

Both sides ought to be using their arty and air support at the most critical place. Don't skimp. If the job calls for a hammer, bring a sledgehammer.