Matrix Games Forums

Good day,

i have a question about this scenario in BFTB, and dealing with enemy artillery in general. I have completed
the tutorial scenario with the allies, and have read most of the manual.

The enemy always uses mass artillery bombardment to make my units retreat as soon as the sun comes up. Since they are in a constant retreat / retreat recovery state, they cannot move or attack, and loose personnel quickly. Is there any way to prevent this ?

welcome to the forum Kanesoban [:)]

The artillery at this stage of the war is very powerful, and fast to respond to calls for fire.
It is used primarily for softening up an enemy position prior to an attack, and for breaking up enemy attacks, or concentrations, like during the reorg phase of an attack.

Your units will enter a state of retreat, in proportion to the number of casualties they have sustained. It represents their reluctance to "step in to the breach" because of what they have just seen happen to their comrades.
It also gives them time to tend to the wounded, and steel themselves for the next attempt at carrying out your orders.
When in formation either under a Bn HQ or above, the units try to stay in that formation.
If one of the units in the formation is unable to advance, because of fatigue, or retreat recovery, the whole formation will wait for that unit to fall back into formation before it will continue the advance.

The AI currently is very bad at dropping the incapacitated unit, and continuing with the advance.
When you see that the advance has halted because one of your units has sustained very heavy casualties, and has gone into retreat recovery, pause the game and assess the objective.

If you think that the objective can be taken with your remaining units that are still in good health, then you have two options.
You can either drop the retreat recovering unit by giving it a defend in situ order, then re order the attack with the HQ. If you do this the HQ will first have to catch up to the new FUP you order.
Or as I normally do, give the HQ a defend in Situ order, then give the remaining line units individual orders to attack.
This is the best option in my opinion for a lightly defended position, because if one of the units goes into retreat recovery the others will continue on to the objective.

If the objective is heavily defended however, or a long way away, you could run the risk of them being picked of individually as they arrive piecemeal at the objective.

Take a look at this image it also has a few tips to help with artillery mitigation:

tm.asp?m=3360428

If you have any more questions, just ask, I will be happy to help if I can.

Which side are you playing in We fight o die here?

ORIGINAL: kanesoban

Good day,

i have a question about this scenario in BFTB, and dealing with enemy artillery in general. I have completed
the tutorial scenario with the allies, and have read most of the manual.

The enemy always uses mass artillery bombardment to make my units retreat as soon as the sun comes up. Since they are in a constant retreat / retreat recovery state, they cannot move or attack, and loose personnel quickly. Is there any way to prevent this ?

From the Game Manual Pg. 169:

"Bombardment against personnel is resolved en masse. The number of personnel casualties is determined by factoring in the number of rounds on target, the lethal area of each round, the number of personnel actually within the BZ, the terrain effects and the deployment status and effectiveness of the target unit. Consequent equipment losses are then determined and taken from the target unit."

In addition:

"After casualties and equipment losses have been taken from the target units, their suppression level and effectiveness values are adjusted ( see General (Gen) Tab and Combat Effectiveness ). Ammunition is expended from the firing units.
The suppression effect of a bombardment can be quite substantial. It can take some time for a unit to fully recover from suppression, during which it’s ability to move and fire can be heavily restricted."

Appendix E in the Game Manual gives an overview of how terrain effects impact a deployed unit under various forms of fire. Bombardment is Area Fire. The manual says:

"Vulnerability effects are expressed in percentage terms and refers to the probability of hitting a deployed person within the specified terrain from direct fire (rifles, MGs, tank guns etc) and area fire (mortar, arty and rocket bombardments and air strikes). Many other factors also apply, such as the firing unit’s posture and effectiveness."

Units deployed in a defensive posture enjoy the most benefits of resting overnight while being prepared to face area fire most effectively at daybreak. If the unit is allowed to defend sufficient time prior to rest, it will first dig in, and eventually entrench in the terrain, further reducing the effects of bombardment.

It's been my habit to order those parts of my command which I don't expect to move or engage in combat to a "defend in-situ" posture prior to nightfall. I'll pause the game, reattach all units other than than those which I may want to press on with an attack, probe, or continue moving until they must rest. After reattaching those units I want to rest to the on-map boss, I'll issue a "defend in-situ" order to the on-map boss.

It allows the units to rest (decreasing fatigue and reducing residual negative suppression and cohesion status at nightfall) and remain secure at daybreak in the event of a bombardment. In doing this, I'm counting on my enemy to be as fatigued from the day's fighting as my units, and thus unable to press into the less than optimal disposition of an "in-situ" combat formation.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the quick reply.

dazkaz: i am playing as Axis. I need to attack across a very wide, open area without cover.
So there isn't a way to tell the HQ AI to not wait for every unit to recover from retreating. I will try to order individual units as you said and see if that works.

ORIGINAL: kanesoban

Thanks for the quick reply.

dazkaz: i am playing as Axis. I need to attack across a very wide, open area without cover.
So there isn't a way to tell the HQ AI to not wait for every unit to recover from retreating. I will try to order individual units as you said and see if that works.

You can try ramping up the level of acceptable losses via the max losses tick box, but this is not a good option in my opinion.
There are usually lots of options, to a given situation in game.

Attacking with infantry across open terrain, during the day is not usually the best one though [:'(]

You might want to try, using tanks instead.
Flanking via covered terrain.
Bypassing.
Putting in diversionary attacks, to mask your main effort, and dilute the artillery, by presenting more targets than they have artillery to suppress.
Resting the units until nightfall, to cross the open terrain stealthily.
Using your own artillery to soften up the objective, and ensure the enemy units on it are suppressed while you cross the open terrain.
A combination of all the above [;)]

Historically the Germans were slaughtered by the US artillery at Dom Butgenbach.

You can minimize this by following the basics outlined by dazkaz15 and trying an end-run approach with the 5th FJ and forget about the quick route to Butgenbach town.