Exit Objectives

[Haiku]

A discussion open up in another thread about exit objectives, and how they are to fulfill. It could be interesting to share ideas here to improve our plays, so I open this thread to gather point of view.

ORIGINAL: loyalcitizen

And I'm finding the exit scenarios are not at all to my liking. Too many of them, too.
I play with Painfully Realistic Orders Delay and often can do nothing but move. No time to shoot. If my guys stop to shoot, there is no way they will ever get moving again in time to exit

I'm not an expert here, but I post some thoughts to start the discussion. Hopefully more competent people will comment and complete.

First, it may sounds obvious, but objectives are usually tough to accomplish, whatever they are (defending a bridge, capturing a down, delaying the enemy,...). Exit objectives may even be harder than other objectives as it requires many conditions to be fulfilled. And it's even more complicated with Painfully Realistic Orders Delay. You can't rely on a simple move task to do the job, and the "bypass" option won't suddenly make your units slip away between enemy lines.

You have to come up with a plan to overcome the enemy.

The obvious general steps are :

• You first need to clear a path to the exit.
• Then you must secure this very path for your exiting troops, so they can move safely.
• Finally you will exit your troops, ideally on a perfectly safe road where they won't encounter any resistance (Thus a move/exit order will be enough here).

Those steps can't be done by the same units: The ones that are moving can't protect their own flank for instance. So you basically need 3 task forces to exit the map, one dedicated to each step (with some grey zone as always)

Some generals tips that comes to mind:

• You need to exit a precise force size (express has an APersonal, AArmor and Bombard firepower). Don't over-exceed this force as it will weaken your in game situation (once the units are gone, they can't be pull back in case of emergency).
• Arty units maybe harder to handle properly than any other units: When they are on the move they won't provide support anymore. But you can't let them behind unprotected to chasing enemy units. I don't have any miracle solution here, but they need a special attention for sure. Try to not move them all at the same time. One half is moving, the other is safely deployed to provide some support in the meantime.
• You will also certainly face some fatigue issues. It's hard to keep a unit fresh when moving for a long time, sometime at fast rate, sometime at night and under enemy pressure. Don't have any miracle solution neither here, but sometimes a tired moving troop could be switch to a somehow quit defensive position to take some rest. Or the other way around, a tired screening unit that see a lot of action may be replace with a fresher moving unit. The "Stragglers" option may also be useful at some point.
• Keep the enemy as far away from the road as possible. Even a little company nearby the road may call for bombardment. It also requires your moving troops to stop their movement changing formation and deploy in order to engage the enemy, losing precious time and energy. Sometimes its better to take the time to allocate a specific task to dislodge even a small resistant pocket that prevent a smooth movement of your troops.
• Usually exit objectives are the one you need to score. Focus your energy on fulfilling it from the very beginning, without being too much disturbed be other "minor" objectives.

[Henri]

Here is a picture of the case I described in the other thread for the scenario "Peiper crosses the Meuse".

We can see that KG Peiper has exit orders (line to the North) and there are no units between the HQ and the exit objective to the North (not shown on the picture).There are only 2 enemy units (circles) that could cause obstruction to the half-dozen KG Peiper units shown by the green lines, and one of them is an AA unit and one is a paratrooper unit. Another potential obstructor is on the wrong side of the river.I drew blue movement lines to show the direction of exit.

There are still two full nights in the game (it is now mid-afternoon of day 4 and the scenario ends at 0000 on Day 6), and there are plenty of other German units with the KG Peiper units to cover their retreat.

True KG Peiper is very tired (look at the fatigue bar), but there is still plenty of time to rest and even tired units can move in the absence of enemies. When the game ended, the KG Peiper HQ had moved a couple of Km up the map along with a couple of units, but most had stayed right where they were and had ignored the exit orders.

[Henri]

it works!

OK, I tried using the "withdraw" command, telling KG Peiper HQ to withdraw to a point near the exit objective. This time, by the next morning all of the units mentioned in the previous post had moved there and they all exited (except the HQ) when I changed the order to exit.Even units that met HQ and artillery enemy units bypassed them after a short stop to smell their socks.

This was enough to give me a draw in this scenario where I got my butt whupped when half a US armored division appeared in my rear on the wrong side of the river because I didn't know that their entry point could vary from game to game (this disaster is described in the thread "Can US tanks swim?".I got 13.6/20 for the exit point.

So in sum, to get to an exit point, if you can't get your units to move, give them a "withdraw" order. That should get them unstuck, although it probably won't get them through a full enemy armored division (otherwise that could lead to gamey tricks to get units where they normally should not go...).

Henri

[loyalcitizen]

I'm going to have to give this battle a try and see how I do.
 
Thanks for opening the topic and for the informative posts.

[GBS]

This in itself looks gamey to me. You say that the withdraw order is the only to get them to move?? So you are withdrawing forward toward your objective....I wish you hadn't shared this.

[FredSanford3]

ORIGINAL: GBS

This in itself looks gamey to me. You say that the withdraw order is the only to get them to move?? So you are withdrawing forward toward your objective....I wish you hadn't shared this.

Why is that gamey? The purpose of a withdrawal command is to disengage from the enemy. The direction is irrelevant.