Matrix Games Forums

Hi!

I have never tried an operational wargame before and I heard lots of good things about this game so I bought it on a whim.
I started playing with no command delay to get the basic mechanics down (before even bothering with planning).
I have a newbie question for you guys. I'm started playing "Skorzeny's bid for glory" as the Germans. What I don't understand is why when I give a move order to a kampfgruppe, the don't move but rest instead. I checked the manual and their status and they are not fatigued. Can anyone explain to me what is going on?

Thanks!

I think that scenario starts at nightime which will cause even non fatigued units to rest until around 3:30-4:00AM. Give them an order and check the "no rest" box and see if that helps.

Is it night time?

You might need to set rest to none, the routes should be developed immediately (task lines change from straight to 'wiggly') then you can set rest back to normal - they will check whether it is appropriate to rest once they complete their movement.

Bear in mind that tired troops should tire faster and take longer to recover from movement than very fresh ones, and are less efficient in combat.
Troops are 'expecting' to sleep at night, and will tire more if active during the night, and recover slower if their rest is during the day than at night.

Fatigue can be decisive towards the end of a multi-day operation. Keeping a portion of the force in reserve, resting as much as is consistent with keeping close enough to be a useful reserve, and relieving the front-line troops at the decisive moment can be the difference between bogging down, and tearing the front wide open.

Yea for me I'm finding fatigue management for the Germans (haven't tried the Allies yet) is a big part of this great game.

Thanks it did the trick. It's a relatively short scenario, and losing a couple hours of sleep is better than getting hammered by artillery. Now to figure how to weigh up odds of winning a firefight .

Once your troops are moving and are about to enter his view, you want to start hitting the objective with artillery... this you keep up until the units make close contact.
Heavy suppression reduces his return fires, morale and allows your troops to arrive in the decisive firefight with higher effectiveness than his.
Avoid heavy use of rapid fire, but it can be useful to break up stubborn defenses used in short 'bursts'. Slow rate is best if the action seems inconclusive - the side with ammunition remaining last will eventually win.
Light artillery and mortars can be used on the rear portion of his units even when you are in close contact - the AI will only fire these if the centre of the unit is 'clear' of friendly forces - heavy artillery is often 'too big' to call in close, particularly if you have a flanking force as well.

Attacking through covered terrain is better than assaulting over open ground - catching his troops moving (retreats or counter-attacks/redeployments) with artillery is far more effective than expending a lot of ammunition on entrenched units - slow rate of fires are enough to wear down his forces and will stretch the duration of suppression/neutralisation fires. Rapid fires are better for destruction of a moving unit - and often will remove a company for several hours and permanently impair its morale.
Some covered terrain is more suitable for movement than others - village/town is safe for both direct and indirect fires - woods are good if you can close decisively and early, but are risky if he has much heavy artillery.

Retain a portion of the heavier artillery to suppress and armour or artillery that you locate which is firing onto the assaulters.

Thanks for the tips. There isn't much artillery available for my forces and the enemy has plenty. I'm thinking about closing the distance quickly to deny them targets. Don't know if this is going to work out though. A small question though, how close is close, say for a rifle company? 500m? Closer? Like I said, it's hard to judge from this scale, for me at least .

Depends on what the troops are armed with - rifles have a max range of ~500m - so for a typical company this would add a lot of additional firepower to the leMG that had been firing before. Closer in you get the PzSchreck and SMG at around 200m and PzFausts at 100m.

These are all max-ranges (and are from footprint 'edge' not centre or edge of the counter). This is typically low effectiveness firepower - less than 1/3 max hit rates are common - halve the max-range to roughly double the firepower you can throw out - and call this close.

So two company teams roughly 160 strong (footprint ~240m square) armed with sMG, leMG, Rifles, SMG would have minimally effective fire projected at 2.24km centre to centre. This is improved considerably by 1.24km, due to improved accuracy of sMG fire, but nothing else is within range.
There is an increase in ammunition expenditure and a modest improvement in effectiveness at 1.04km when the leMG come into range, their effectiveness is good by 0.64km, by which time the rifles have been in operation (since 0.74km - again a lot more ammunition used, minimal effectiveness increase). At 0.49km the rifles are becoming effective, and SMG and PzSchreck are available from around 0.44km, but with again only modest effectiveness. Within 0.34km the SMG have reached a useful accuracy, and PzFaust are finally in range.

In practice most contacts will be decided before the attacker can close this far - usually by heavy weapons, or ammunition depletion (really bad for the force that runs out). Exact distances will vary according to accuracy profiles, and troop quality/cover. Fire will be effective further against troops moving in the open than it is against troops deployed in a city. There are also changes to the unit footprint according to cohesion, posture and formation that can hugely distort these relationships - particularly large formations with many vehicles moving to and from column formation.

Larger forces will appear further apart for each range, and platoons will seem closer together. Be careful of overlapping footprints though - it prevents AI firing artillery in support (and it isn't a particularly 'good' idea to do it yourself, but it can be done, and is often the best of bad choices left).

Grid squares are at 1km spacing and terrain cells are 100m across (with uniform terrain type, slope etc) - there is not a 1:1 correlation with the drawn map graphics, so check what is in the location using the right click - sometimes "open" terrain will be part of a building cell, and sometimes part of a tree-line or village may count as "open".

The advantage of HE firing weapons is that effectiveness isn't really impaired by long range (misses are effective at causing suppression and casualties still, but care has to be taken when forces are close and shooters are at long relative range, as dispersion can be very high and fires can inadvertently fall on friendly positions.

When looking at objectives, be aware of the difference of secure and defend...

With 'defend' you get points for merely occupying the location - enemy presence doesn't block your success - so it is always worth placing a token force onto one of these, with 'survival' mission in mind - so long as it is here it is giving you points... conversely you must deny the enemy access to an objective completely if it is suspected of being a "defend" mission - he only requires this minimal garrison to exist.

With 'secure' you get points for dominating the objective - a 10:1 presence is required for ownership. So if he has significant forces nearby you need a very large force to guarantee your success where the objective is contested, but you can block his attempts with a modest force - this is probably larger than the force needed for 'defend' but can be far smaller than his assault or defending force to ruin his day.

The other side of 'secure' is that you probably don't want all those forces on or in the objective circle - denying the approaches to it from further afield and shooting up his moving troops over a longer distance of travel will delay his attack more, and spreading out your forces a bit will reduce suppression and casualties from artillery. A company in good morale will deny occupation by a Regiment sized force, particularly one that has taken losses over 2-5km of advance through hostile strongpoints.

Thanks for the tips! Is there some sort of strategy where all this is explained? Otherwise you'll have to put up with a lot of questions.

ORIGINAL: t3685

Is there some sort of strategy where all this is explained?

Practice, practice, and read the Scenario Maker Manual - it has a lot of good information that doesn't get covered in the game manual.

You should also download "Markshots Top Tips" that he did for Conquest of the Aegean.[8D]

ORIGINAL: simovitch

ORIGINAL: t3685

Is there some sort of strategy where all this is explained?

Practice, practice, and read the Scenario Maker Manual - it has a lot of good information that doesn't get covered in the game manual.

You should also download "Markshots Top Tips" that he did for Conquest of the Aegean.[8D]

He he he ... that royalty income just keeps rolling in ... oh, wait a minute, betas don't receive royalties ... foiled again! (in any case, I am honored to still be included among the list of past and present contributors ... I plan to be buried with my RDOA/HTTR/COTA/BFTB discs so that I will be all ready to game in my next life)

I managed a minor victory in the first attempt of the scenario and a tactical victory in the second (no command delay of course). Will play around a bit more to understand the basic mechanics. The hardest thing right now is reading how a battle is going. In smaller scale games you see the casualties lying. Here all you see is a counter. 

One last question, how do I move just the HQ unit, without having all of its subordinates move along. For example if I want to reposition the individual companies + HQ?

Lassoo the companies and give them a seperate order. Then issue another order to the HQ. It should not have anyone under it. But you can check this by observing any green command lines to subordinates or by checking the OB display in the sidebar ( make sure you have the OB set to display the player or current structures ).