Matrix Games Forums

Irinami,
I like the combination for A formation. I'm going to expand my formation next time and give it a go.


klinkenhoffen

I tend to keep the A0 in the general vacinity of my reserves or rear security detachment. That way he's got some protection as well as the ability to throw his caommand points in if I need to move something around the backfield. (I uses C&C also.)

In H2H, the A0 can at least defend itself, but I still feel more comfortable when it has something to use against bot infantry and armor. The best option is to have an escape route, and to me that means an area that has at least some support.

Are you guys hiding in obvious locations? MY A0 is never found by my opponent. The only protection he gets is a stray sniper, scout or MG set to max op fire range to alert me if someone is sneaking up on me. Other than that, my A0 is on his own and his orders are to keep his op fire set to 1 or 0 and to dig in and NOT move a muscle. He's rather difficult to find that way.

Rbrunsman,

I think that is what half my problem is. Deploying in an obvious position.

Klink

I've found that you can pretty much place your A0 right in the middle of a huge field and as long as he doesn't move and a whole enemy column doesn't go driving up to his position, he is unlikely to be spotted. If he has a big entourage (sp?) he is more likely to be seen. The whole idea of protecting your A0 with more than a token MG or sniper is counterproductive IMHO.

rbrunsman wrote:Are you guys hiding in obvious locations? MY A0 is never found by my opponent. The only protection he gets is a stray sniper, scout or MG set to max op fire range to alert me if someone is sneaking up on me. Other than that, my A0 is on his own and his orders are to keep his op fire set to 1 or 0 and to dig in and NOT move a muscle. He's rather difficult to find that way.

I don't give them any protection, such as an MG or sniper, but then I'm always playing the AI anyway. No, I hide mine, but I have to position him at least somewhat close to the onboard artillery or more than likely that artillery will be shishkabob after a couple of turns and be useless. With that in mind, probably the best thing to do with them is plant them maybe 6-8 hexes away from the artillery, therefore safe, but have some transport in the same hex with them that will be able to dump them off close to the artillery in one turn, should they be hit earlier.

There are four very valuable things that an A0 does for you and yours.

1) The A0 acts as the highest commander in you army, this allows it to rally any unit in your command, even after your Platoon commander and Company commander fail their rally. He needs to be within 3 hexes of them to do this.

This can be very useful but, ussually you can only do this for one or two units. I only do this when my artillary park has been bombarded and then I will move my A0 over to rally the Platoon commanders before relocating the artillary park.

2) All units get a rally at the end of the phase, units that are within 5 hexs of the A0 get an additional rally.

Again this can be very useful, but I do not use my A0 in the front, to much of a chance to get killed. What I do is keep it within 5 hexs of my artillary park that way if the park gets bombarded, the A0 can give it additional support when they need to rally and be moved.

3) The A0 acts as the overall commander in the game, cordinating the attack. This happens in C&C and also with C&C off. This means that all units need to be in contact with him in order to cordinate their attacks. This is a lot more important in C&C than in C&C off mode.
Since the vast majority of players play with C&C off, the only advantages for being in contact with the A0 in a game with C&C off is for artillary and FO's. If you have an FO who is in contact with the A0 you can allways use that FO to call in artillary from all over the map and get your fast response time. If your artillary is in contact with you A0 it will get to fire a artillary barage that turn, or at least plot a barage.

Because of this I always keep one FO in the same hex as my A0 and I ussually position my A0 within sight distance of my artillary park. Because of this I always have all of my on-board artillary ready to plot every turn with the lowest plot times possible.

4) Finally the A0 acts at the last resort. Meaning that if your opponent has taken all of the victory hexes and has broken your army's force moral it is the A0 that determines if a retreat is in order. When this situation happens your A0 make a rally roll and if it succeeds the game does not end but goes on for another turn. If on the other hand your A0 fails its rally role the game ends, and most likely with a bad result for you. Now if your A0 has been killed and your opponent takes all of the victory hexes it is see you later time. The game will automatically end, with a definate definate bad result to you.

For these reasons I never leave my A0 without some type of support. First I ussually have 2-3 small two man recon patrols. Then 1 platoon of halftracks and one platoon of light/medium trucks. Since I play almost exclusively with on-board artillary (get the most for the least amount of points) I tend to want to relocate my artillary park fairly often. The recon is to spot the anoying infiltrators that sneak around your backfield, the halftrack are to deal with the infiltrators and move your artillary and ammo boxes, and the trucks are for moving your artillary and being targets for very obnoxious aircraft. I also tend to set up my A0 way in the back in an area where I have place a stong force in the front. IE: in an area of the map where I an intending to move forward instead of backwards.

For all of these reasons I never leave my A0 out all by itself or undefended.

Gary Tatro wrote:
{snip}

2) All units get a rally at the end of the phase, units that are within 5 hexs of the A0 get an additional rally.

Isn't this also true of command posts?

Thanks,

Procrustes wrote:Isn't this also true of command posts?

Thanks,

But very seldom will I purchase a Command post. It is stationary, big and costs around 150 points. Since I already have my A0 Commander.

Gary Tatro wrote:But very seldom will I purchase a Command post. It is stationary, big and costs around 150 points. Since I already have my A0 Commander.

I don't purchase them - they are provided in some of the scenarios I play.

So the A0 unit has extra rally capabilities; it sounds like command posts do as well; are there any other units with similar capabilities?

Do ammo dumps have any effect on rally, and do command posts have any effect on supply?

Thanks again,

And what about command bunkers. Any effect on rally?

Charles_22 wrote:I don't give them any protection, such as an MG or sniper, but then I'm always playing the AI anyway. No, I hide mine, but I have to position him at least somewhat close to the onboard artillery or more than likely that artillery will be shishkabob after a couple of turns and be useless. With that in mind, probably the best thing to do with them is plant them maybe 6-8 hexes away from the artillery, therefore safe, but have some transport in the same hex with them that will be able to dump them off close to the artillery in one turn, should they be hit earlier.

I thought of something else that nobody ever seems to mention, and that is, if you're going to shoot their ranges down to zero, why not disable their weapons too? Is it possible that an A0 would remain unspotted with an enemy unit in the hex? Seems I've "seen" that happen before, but then again that was probably before melee and overrun came into being. Perhaps the only way it was possible, then, if not now, was when the unit within the hex became so routed it couldn't see the other, and it wasn't thought to respot the unit by picking another unit within the vicinity.

Charles_22 wrote:I thought of something else that nobody ever seems to mention, and that is, if you're going to shoot their ranges down to zero, why not disable their weapons too? Is it possible that an A0 would remain unspotted with an enemy unit in the hex? Seems I've "seen" that happen before, but then again that was probably before melee and overrun came into being. Perhaps the only way it was possible, then, if not now, was when the unit within the hex became so routed it couldn't see the other, and it wasn't thought to respot the unit by picking another unit within the vicinity.

Hmmm, that's pretty interesting. If you reply to one of your own posts, which that post had a quote from someone else within it (rbrunsman in this case) it won't show the person you're quoting, so the prior post looks rather silly because it look like I'm responding to myself, whereas I'm only adding comment to the pevious comment I made to rbrunsman.

Charles, I rarely turn off the weapons. I'll set them to zero more often. The reason is that you know when you are sharing a hex with someone. So, it's only a matter of time before you get spotted in that situation. With your weapons off, you have no chance. At least with them on and set to zero, there is the chance that you can repel the first encounter and bring help up.

(That was a quick and crappy response, but I'm late for a meeting.) Gotta run...

rbrunsman wrote:Charles, I rarely turn off the weapons. I'll set them to zero more often. The reason is that you know when you are sharing a hex with someone. So, it's only a matter of time before you get spotted in that situation. With your weapons off, you have no chance. At least with them on and set to zero, there is the chance that you can repel the first encounter and bring help up.

(That was a quick and crappy response, but I'm late for a meeting.) Gotta run...

That's my knee-jerk reaction to my question had it been posed by someone else too, but thinking along the lines I was, I'm thinking there might be an 'outside' chance that it could be of some benefit.

As you said, "Outside chance" of it being a benefit to turn off the guns. On balance, I consider a range of zero or one to be slightly better than having them turned off. That is not to say that I don't turn them off sometimes. I don't know about other players, but I'm constantly adjusting the op fire ranges and what weapons are on or off for all of my units. Every situation demands a unique tactical response. Don't you agree? Some people (me!) micro manage lots of aspects of the game that others simply don't bother with or don't know about.

I think all would agree that having your A0 spotted is a tragedy. Avoid this happening however you think it works best for you. I don't think any one way is best.

I'm playing a game right now which by its setup caused my A0 to be almost the leading unit in the battle. I'm playing cat and mouse with him right now to try to get him to safety, but I sure don't dare fire with him because that will for sure alert my opponent to the fact that the A0 is within his grasp. And, no, it's not against anyone on the Forum, so don't get excited if you are currently playing me. :p

Good Hunting!

I've had an enemy miss my A0 in the same hex.

1942 Germany vs. ChiCom generated scenario. :p Anyone remotely better trained than the ChiComs would have spotted him, IM(ns)HO.

rbrunsman:

And, no, it's not against anyone on the Forum, so don't get excited if you are currently playing me.

Yeah, yeah, we've all heard that before. An obvious outside-the-game psychological ploy.

I discovered recently, by accident, that the HQ at the front can make a big difference in minor nations - those with low rally and experience.

I'm playing the Italians at War campaign, and by mistake had my HQ close to the fighting. The troop there were much 'stiffer' than usual. I haven't noticed that a close HQ makes much difference to troops of more 'major' nations - the ones most people like to play with.

Possibly the best use of the HQ is different in different situations -
For good troops with high morale and a good command structure, the HQ can sit at the rear keeping the artillery in touch (or whatever they do back there in the cellars)
For more fragile troops, HQ has a bigger effect at the front.

This seems to make sense in terms of command pychology, but it is interesting if the game mimicks this.

Anyone else notice this effect?

rbrunsman wrote:I've found that you can pretty much place your A0 right in the middle of a huge field and as long as he doesn't move and a whole enemy column doesn't go driving up to his position, he is unlikely to be spotted. If he has a big entourage (sp?) he is more likely to be seen. The whole idea of protecting your A0 with more than a token MG or sniper is counterproductive IMHO.

What you're describing rb is the way it's done in RL as far as I've ever seen. The AO is far back, with minimal protection immediately close by. He does have some protection perhaps within the 1/4 mile but even that isn't a lot. After all, you should have enough recon out to warn of an approaching enemy before it gets to be a danger.

In RL, the AO is not usually in the middle of the field however. Too easy to spot from the air. Instead, he is often at the edge of some woods or in a depression where he isn't easy to spot but can still get away fast if need be. There is always transportation very close to run if need be.

Again, in RL, the AO doesn't fight, even if the enemy is near. Not only is he too important to risk, but he usually only has small arms and perhaps some sub-machine guns for the support staff. Not enough to do anything with unless the enemy is 'in the same hex'. :rolleyes:

The AO in RL is almost always in close contact with artillery, usually through FO's but sometimes directly in a small battle.

To translate all this to SPWAW, the proper idea seems to be to have the AO in the rear, with weapons off and range '0'. Not moving but with transport within a hex or two. FO's also within a few hexes and all in contact with arty. Some light recon surrounding at a good distance and perhaps some light weapons units (ATG's, infantry and MG's) within perhaps 10 hexes.