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Gentlemen,

I have few questions about the defensive tactics. What is your preferred order in a defensive situation? I've ordered most of my units to hold. They are defending in town so they should be a tough nut to crack for the attacking Soviets. During the turn 1, the attackers have suffered high loses. Mine are very modes so far, but the reds are pounding my positions with the artillery and the readiness of my troops is dropping. I have no doubts that my positions will be eventually overwhelmed. So should I maybe place my troops in a screen mode?

I have also noticed that after some time, the units become unresponsive and they require a lot of time to execute new orders. Basically my observation is, that once they are locked in a combat, it's very difficult to disengage - regardless the orders. In most of the battles I fought so far, eventually all the units become locked in the combat and at that stage, my influence on the outcome is very limited ( apart from sending in some reserves if I still have them ). It kind of reminds me of medieval times, when the role of commander was just to lead his army to the battle and then just wait to see, which side will kill more enemy soldiers. Is there any way to prevent such an outcome on the late XX century battlefield?

As your units fight, they Readiness drops. That plays a big part in order delay. Disengaging is difficult. It is so in reality, as the enemy gets a vote. If the enemy is 500 meters away, forget it. You need to resolve that fight.

If you want to give a movement order after an engagement, do a Resupply. Get Readiness back up. In real life, a unit doing Resupply is doing lots of other stuff that is not a push of ammo, fuel, and food from the supply system. Things like breaking out cans of ammo from vehicle storage racks, linking it together and reloading ready boxes or racks. Stuff like recovering commo wire for field telephones and cross leveling ammo among squads and vehicles. Recovering mines and stowing them.

So one way of looking at tings is they either get done during Resupply or during order delay.

But in general ( as NATO ), should I rather avoid situations when my units get entangled in a close combat and hold the ground? Should I be rather gradually giving up the ground? What is the safest distance from the enemy, that will allow me to disengage?

Is such a "not one step back" formation a really bad idea for the NATO forces?


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I try to destroy the Soviet force not defend terrain. With such a goal in mind I will use the Objective Locations as lures for the AI. I set up the best possible defensive positions I can where I can kill as many Soviets as I can when they move towards the OL's. That usually ends in my favor. Not all maps and OL's are accommodating but most are.

Good Hunting.

MR

Your engagement area is not deep enough to do what you'd like, with the current game engine. Especially when you have no fire support.

As NATO, especially as US, you want to pick terrain that lets you spot the enemy 4+ km away. That enables you to open at max effective range. You for sure do not want to let Soviet forces close to under 2 km.

You are not going to be able to have a command cycle with your defenders in Hold or Screen, then give a move order and not have the Soviets close and pin them down.

You might be able to give your defenders a move order before the Soviets actually get inside the engagement area. The units may take a shot during order delay.

Some interesting advice here. I guess I'll need to change my mindset - this game differs quite a lot from the stuff that I am used to. In most of the games I know, capturing or holding the terrain objectives is players primordial task.

This is a truly unique game, but not an easy one to get into. With the future releases in mind, I'd suggest you to make some official "boot camp" videos, that would help to speed up the learning process of green players like myself. For the moment I have found this series of videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93H5MWL4ZK4

I'm going to watch them closely, before giving the game another go.

If your playing the AI breaking contact can be tough, the AI uses the assault order which means it wont stop and because it uses mainly the road system it often advances very rapidly.

If I need to withdrawal while in contact I try to plan 1 command cycle ahead, this often requires me to set movement orders, then watch how the command cycle action unfolds, then either letting the movement order carry on or cancelling it. Doesn't work well with infantry as they automatically enter their vehicles when you give a movement order leaving them 'exposed' to being destroyed along with their vehicles.
Doing this also hampers any defensive stance benefits but if you need to withdrawal under fire there isn't a lot of options.

Fighting a delay is difficult in reality and in the game, it really isn't possible in 2.0x. I suspect 2.1 will add enough of the right kind of behaviors to units to let you actually plan and execute a delay.

I don't think you can either forward defend nor delay through Bucholz/Steinbeck in CA1. You need to defend west of those cities. I have had success using cav recce to blow the bridges and screen in Steinbeck. They have avoided a close fight while slowing down and inflicting casualties on Soviets as they work their way through Bucholz and cross the river.

You can successfully forward defend Holm-Seppensen, then withdraw. A tank company, a mech company and some recce augmentation will deal with the attacking tank regiment. Then you can pull those forces westward to help with the Steinbeck gap. The terrain down there is deep enough and channels the attacker into a single file attack. That is unlike east of Bucholz. There is a massively wide front and the mine and obstacle belt is too close to the city. You don't have arty yet and you can't kill the Soviets fast enough on such a huge frontage. Much better to set up an engagement area west of the city and wait for the single file attack columns.

Remind me not to fight against you [:D]