Japanese grand strategy

[mogami]

Hi, I like that.
On retreats
I think a unit retreating can always go faster at the start then the unit pursuing it. First the attacker has to know the defender has even departed the hex.
In history I have a hard time finding where a defender abandoned his works and was not out of contact before the attacker realized it.
I like instant retreat. It is not really a safty net for bad play but a means of not punishing good play.
If the attacker can overwhelm you then you have to be gone before he attacks.
It is a good thing to force attackers to deploy for attack and then not be there when it comes.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, I think there are examples of where a force stood it's ground fought and then said "time to go"
In WITP you can't say "time to go" because every time you are attacked your movement is cancalled and has to begin all over only to be cancelled by the next arty barrage.

This is true. (Drongo was able to bug out during pauses to rest,)

What i'd suggest instead is that the bombardment cancels movement be removed instead. Further, i'll reitterate, i've yet to see evidience that one single forced retreat wrecks an LCU to any degree. I've suffered retreats but my units have not been overly hurt by it. Worst impact of course is the loss of all supply which must be replenished.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: moses

BTW reducing forts with the eng attack isn't all that easy . It takes a long time even with four eng units. I found that it took about a month to reduce a level 9 fort to level 4 and at that point it was possible for the enemy to repair the fort as fast as I could reduce it.


The problem was that it could be done while at the same time inflicting greater losses on the defender. This was clearly wrong

After being convinced that the pure engineer attack was gamey I started doing the same thing but adding one division to the attack. The results struck me as quite realistic. I took about 2-1 casualties(per combat report) and was able to reduce the forts with each attack. (once every 3 days)

Perhaps the easy solution here is too require a minimum AV (I think about 200-300 AV) in order for engineers to reduce forts.

I'd say the easiest solution here would be to agree to either all attack or not attack. ENG units were originally envisioned in the game as support for a primary attack with increased chances to decrease fort levels. Now, one can attack with the "support" while preserving the primary forces

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

Remove this "tactical" ability which destroys forts inherent to engineer units. This does not belong at all in this scale. Period. Forts should never be reduced to zero in city/base hexes. After all, rubble is a great fortification. Perhaps minimum of 3 once built up.

I dont see fort level reduction as "Tactical" if its the result of a primary attack by all forces. Besides, if the attacker cant reduce fort levels, he'll never be able to take the hex at all.

The 'rubble' thing is factored into the terrain value. Urban hexes get an automatic fort bonus that cant be eliminated.

[scout1]

i've yet to see evidience that one single forced retreat wrecks an LCU to any degree.

Given your background in this game, that surprises me. Retreating may not cost alot of men, but trashes the fatigue and disruptioin values almost instanteously. Plus, you're now in the open (if starting from a base). An LCU that was forced to retreat is meat on a hook for some time to come.

[moses]

I'd say the easiest solution here would be to agree to either all attack or not attack. ENG units were originally envisioned in the game as support for a primary attack with increased chances to decrease fort levels. Now, one can attack with the "support" while preserving the primary forces

The problem is in the game it means you just can't attack a heavily fotified base. I tried attacking Chungking with a deliberate attack and took 18000 caualties in one day. Are you saying there should be no option but to reenact the battle of the Somme?

There should be some way of wearing away at the defences over time. Certainly IRL you would not simply charge at the fortifications.

Now, one can attack with the "support" while preserving the primary forces

Agree that this is wrong. Its been clearly demonstrated. But need we go to the other extreme.

[moses]

On the eng question. If I have one division and 4 eng in a hex is it gamey to deliberate attack with everything. Obviouisly no. At least I think most would think this was OK.

So if I then add 3 more divisions why should it be gamey to attack with one division and bombard with the other three?

By just having a minimum AV you avoid this paradox.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: scout1

i've yet to see evidience that one single forced retreat wrecks an LCU to any degree.

Given your background in this game, that surprises me. Retreating may not cost alot of men, but trashes the fatigue and disruptioin values almost instanteously. Plus, you're now in the open (if starting from a base). An LCU that was forced to retreat is meat on a hook for some time to come.

The issue that is being most debated, unless i am misunderstanding, is that the Attacker gains an advantage when he can force a unit to retreat because it causes permanent equipment and squad losses to the retreated unit while the attacker only suffers disablements. I have no problem with a unit pushed out of a hex having high disruption and fatigue.

what i am seeing so far is that a unit retreating once, doesn't "appear" to be suffering much different (if any) ratio loss of disablements/kills. I want to try a static test though where the figures are carefully recorded however before passing final judgement

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: moses

On the eng issue I think there appears to be a problem but I also think there has to be a way to reduce fortifications short of an all out attack. The way it is working in the Chansa AAR thread does appear to be out of line.

Reduction of fortifications can IRL be done over time without huge loss of life. However it certainly should not be possible to do it while inflicting greater loss on the defender.

An "all out attack" in the game is a shock attack. A "deliberate" attack is what i would consider a normal offensive operation of which fortification reduction and general erroding of the enemy's position is a normal objective. I dont see a delib attack as "all out" but rather a major operation conducted by the forces in the hex.

[Mr.Frag]

The problem is in the game it means you just can't attack a heavily fotified base. I tried attacking Chungking with a deliberate attack and took 18000 caualties in one day.

Sure you can ... It just takes time to do so. You have to attack, rest, rest, attack, etc ...

The eng loophole means you take next to no losses, and even the losses you do take as so spread out that they are hardly felt or scored. It might take 4 or 5 0:1 attacks before fatigue is high enough on the defender that it slips and becomes a 1:1 or a 2:1. You might have to bring in aircraft and bomb them, you know, war stuff ... what a thought.

The point is that until the 0:1 changes over, engineers should not be breaking down the walls. The other side has engineers too. In a 0:1, they are putting up the walls faster then you are breaking them down so it makes zero sense at all for the fortification to drop.

If that was the case and the design concept, do you not think there would be the same ability on the defender side to counter build during combat?

[scout1]

Fair enough. But the choices for the defender at this point is cut and run before the attacker gets there OR Stalingrad. There is no inbetween. A fighting withdraw of some type should be a viable option. Even the Germans had this choice at Stalingrad (for a while) until they were completely surrounded.

[AmiralLaurent]

The problem is that hex have a global fortification level, whatever the number of troops are here.

Haven't tested that but if I understand well, if you have 5 divisions in some place and a NLF on the hex behind digging trenches, if the 5 divisions retreat to the same hexes there will be enough trenches for everybody.

I would have preferred that fortifications would be shown as a number of bunkers, each able to protect a squad and each squad in forts being counted as 10 times his assault value. Each engineers squad will have a chance to destroy a bunker, so only depriving one squad of his protection. Same for assaults, they will destroy bunkers (chase troops from prepared positions to other ones).

That will be for the next game. :p

[Nikademus]

I agree that the bombardment "trick" fixates the defender in place and should be changed. But when the attacker doesn't bombard for this sake, it 'is' possible to withdrawl.

How is a forced retreat Stalingrad?

[moses]

I know what your saying but when encountering fortifications you would not just take 18,000 casualties in an immediate deliberate attack but would conduct operations of a more limited nature to reduce the forts. The attacks as they now work are wrong I agree. I think there should be a minimum force to support the engineers.

If I have to attack with everything then I am better off with 1 division in my besieging force then I am with 6 divisions. There is no real reason why every division has to participate in every attack in order to progressively degrade the enemies fortifications over time.

[scout1]

My example stems from the fact that the boys in Stalingrad ALL shared the same fate because they didn't hae a choice (Adolf saw to that). A forced retreat of the entire army has the same effect. Now if there was a fighting withdraw, some portion of the army is manning the front lines (and will likely be toast), while the balance of the army beats feet. So the larger group retrating doesn't take as severe hit as a forced retreat under fire.

[Nikademus]

I dont see a forced retreat as a "stalingrad" (well not yet....i will be testing this) Massive disruption and fatigue after retreat? yes. I think such a thing should be a natural result of a forced retreat. Even an 'orderly' fighting withdrawl is going to result in some of this.

Now if the defender is immediately losing massive numbers of squads and equipment every time it retreats...i can see the point but units i've had retreated in my current game have not exhibited this to the best of my knowledge.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: moses

I know what your saying but when encountering fortifications you would not just take 18,000 casualties in an immediate deliberate attack but would conduct operations of a more limited nature to reduce the forts. The attacks as they now work are wrong I agree. I think there should be a minimum force to support the engineers.

You might depending on how you plan the attack. Keep in mind of those "18,000 casualties", most of them, as much as 90% would be wounded vs. being killed. (I really think this was what Gary was after when he wrote the LCU formulas)

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Correct me if I am wrong moses but does this not sound like exactly what you want:

Attack
Shock
Bombard
Defend
Withdraw

Withdraw is a new option that allows unit to retreat orderly in a planned manner reducing losses and leaving a fairly intact unit able to continue the fight.

If such a feature could be coded, to be fair, the attacker should have better chances of success (forcing retreat) and reduced losses vs attacking LCU's set to "Defend" Same principle as the difference in attack values (and resultant attacker casualties) when choosing between deliberate and shock attacks.

A simpler solution may remain eliminating the bombardment cancels movement phenomenum and not allowing "individual attacks" by units within a hex in order to produce the attack cancels movement without suffering heavy losses to keep your enemy pinned.

[moses]

You might depending on how you plan the attack. Keep in mind of those "18,000 casualties", most of them, as much as 90% would be wounded vs. being killed. (I really think this was what Gary was after when he wrote the LCU formulas)

OK lets say I am a sane commander and I come across a force defending behind strong fortifications. I am stronger then the enemy but not so much that I can just storm ahead. Say I have a 3 to 2 ration of combat power. What do I do.

In the game a deliberate attack causes very great losses and very disadvantages loss ratio's. Very quickly my advantage will disappear and the battle is over after two or three delibearate attacks.

What would more likely be done is a period of smaller, limited attacks aimed at undermining the enemies position and fortifications. This process seems to be modeled fairly well when I attack in the game with a single division supported by engineers. That's all I'm saying.

[Mr.Frag]

A simpler solution may remain eliminating the bombardment cancels movement phenomenum and not allowing "individual attacks" by units within a hex in order to produce the attack cancels movement without suffering heavy losses to keep your enemy pinned.

Yea, thought about that, but unless fighting on rail/road with low fatigue, you're not going to be moving in any great hurry and it is pretty likely that all you are doing by moving is ensuring your troops don't get rest which in turn makes them *more* likely to end up retreating due to high fatigue. Gets you in the back really, trying to leave makes it more likely that you'll end up fleeing instead of leaving. You would be better off sitting still in the hex and get retreated for free as until it happens, you will at least attempt to recover fatigue/disruption.

If such a feature could be coded, to be fair, the attacker should have better chances of success (forcing retreat) and reduced losses vs attacking LCU's set to "Defend" Same principle as the difference in attack values (and resultant attacker casualties) when choosing between deliberate and shock attacks.

Agreed. Think it is as simple as making it a 1:1 result triggers withdrawl if set. Parity instead of a win ... Toss in a modifier if set to Defend that makes the unit very unlikely to retreat (ie; ordered to hold at all costs) as long as units have > 50% supply.

...

That plus fixing the engineer bonus on fortifications on less then a 1:1 result and it should go a *long* ways in the right direction.

...

Now ... all we need is to invent a 32 hour clock so there is time for all this [X(]