Ground Combat

[lordmaul13]

Hi.

I was reading the thread on Japanese Strategy in China and it prompted me to post this thread. I'm just curious if anyone has any basic tips or strategies relating to ground combat they would like to share.

lordmaul13

[freeboy]

If attacking a large well fortified base, that you think has over 30k troops, BOMB the crap out of them before landing or marching into hex.. If a very large base 100k .. above and set troops to all move together with the all follow command... as opposed to all move command.. if you hit all move they will arrive piecemeal and forced to retreat, then start over...
and again.. cut off the enemies supplies...
It can be better to attack a weakened and disorganized defender when not totally ready than what and rest.. remember the enemy is resting too.. and finally look at the HQ,s.. get them close or in the combat hex and with the troops all set to 100 planning for the base is Very Important.. and finally, again[:-] let troops that are disorganised rest

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: lordmaul13

Hi.

I was reading the thread on Japanese Strategy in China and it prompted me to post this thread. I'm just curious if anyone has any basic tips or strategies relating to ground combat they would like to share.

lordmaul13

Stack all your units in a hex and crush everything with your land death star.[:)]

[tsimmonds]

Taking a well-defended hex can be a long-term project. Be sure you bring enough stuff to finish the job. You will want to have engineer regiments to knock down the forts. Assaulting engineers also cause considerable casualties among defenders, as do armored regiments. Bring 2 or 3 of each to a big fight.

Combat causes disablements, disruption, fatigue and loss of morale. In a very real sense, who manages these factors better will win the campaign for the hex. To recover from these, you need support and supplies. You need an assault HQ (an army HQ for IJA, I don't know what the analogous unit is for allied LCAs) for sure, but that by itself will not give you enough support (enough support means "required support" is not in the red for any LCU). As IJ, I have also been bringing an air HQ of some sort, plus an aviation regiment. These have large numbers of support squads, and they will come in quite handy after you take the hex: you will be able to base a/c there the next day after it falls....I brought the Southern Area Army HQ (with prep points) to my assault on Singapore....

Also bring lots of artillery, three or four regiments are good if you are going after an objective defended by up to 50-75,000 enemy. You probably will not be assaulting every day, as your infantry will most likely need to rest in order to recover disruption and fatigue, so you will want to have artillery to keep up the pressure on the days you rest your infantry.

I like to assault when all my main assault units have recovered disruption/fatigue to 20/50 at the worst. Do not assault with LCUs with worse disruption/fatigue levels than these, except in the most urgent of circumstances. I would consider something like the following to be urgent: your last shock attack knocked the enemy's forts from 1 down to 0. Your attack was a 1-to-1; the ground combat animation showed you had 2000 actual AV adjusted to 1000, while the enemy was 800 adjusted to 600. There is a group of enemy LCUs in the adjacent hex. I would make another shock attack regardless of the state of my LCUs (with one exception), because you are very close to taking the hex, but the enemy could easily have reinforcements arriving at any time. The exception would be if supply was green or orange before the last attack but is now in the red. Unsupplied LCUs attack very poorly. If your supply goes red, guess what? You just became the defender.....

A game consideration is that the "top" assaulting LCU (not an HQ) in your "stack" will take the heaviest casualties. If that "top" unit is one of your most important assault elements (eg., an IJA division) your attacks will be delayed by the necessity for this unit to recover from disruption/fatigue. Find smaller infantry units that will stack on top of your main units and take the heat for them. An important consideration for defense as well as attack.

Another game consideration is that if the enemy has enough supply, he may be rebuilding his fort levels even as you are taking them down. To prevent this do airfield or port strikes to keep some level of damage there for him to repair. As long as his engineers have damage to repair they will not be rebuilding forts. Also this burns up his supply. Yesyesyes, gamey, but who does not do this?

One important thing to keep in mind is that naval bombardment, while powerful, can mislead you. The combat report may show them causing large numbers of casualties, but their effect is concentrated among support units. While in the long run this is very effective in wearing down an enemy defense, in the short term a big bombardment will not have much effect at all in the enemy's defensive strength. The effect is in reducing his ability to recover from your assaults in between times while you rest your troops.

Air support can be decisive. If your last attack was a 1-to-1 deliberate assault, shock attacking the very next turn in conjunction with a powerful ground support strike will almost always get you that 2-to-1. Ground support strikes generally cause disablements/disruption among the enemy's most powerful--and therefore most important--LCU. This hits directly at his ability to resist your assault. The effect is fleeting however; the following turn the affected LCU will most likely have recovered from 80% or more of the effect of the air strike. You have to assault the same turn to get the full benefit.

The three most important things (unless you have enough juice to get the 2-to-1 on the first attack): support, supply and preparation points.

Start with a bombardment attack. This will show you exactly what you are up against. If you are supremely confident, or if the enemy does a bombardment attack first (thus showing you what he has), start making deliberate assaults. Repeat as you recover disruption/fatigue. When you finally get the magic 1-to-1 with no forts, do a shock attack the following turn. If the enemy has many forts and you have many engineers and are getting 2-to-1 or better, consider making shock attacks sooner, you may take down multiple fort levels in a single turn.

I almost forgot: You must watch the entire ground combat animation. This is the only way to have any inkling of how the attack is progressing. After you sit through the seemingly interminable exchange of bombardments and assaults, you will be rewarded by an exact display of your base and adjusted AV followed by the enemy's base and adjusted AV. These four numbers are crucial, you need to write them down, and write down the follow-up attacks right next to them. In this way you will develop a very good sense of progress over time. If you don't do this, you will have to guess as to when to apply your final shock attack, the coup de gras.

All the above is based on the assumption that your supply is not in the red. If your supply is in the red, do not attack, unless you know that have overwhelming strength in the hex.

[lordmaul13]

Hi.

Thanks for all the replies, there's some great stuff here.

Someone suggested cut off the enemy supplies. How do go about doing that? Do you try to take hexes to cut the road/rail line to the objective? Do you surround the hex? How would you go about cutting off supply to a landlocked hex, say one in China or Russia or India?

lordmaul13

[freeboy]

ok

Taking a well-defended hex can be a long-term project. Be sure you bring enough stuff to finish the job. You will want to have engineer regiments to knock down the forts. Assaulting engineers also cause considerable casualties among defenders, as do armored regiments. Bring 2 or 3 of each to a big fight.

, this stuff above is great.. I just cannot as the allies wait that long to watch all that stuff

Regarding supplies.. If it is and Island do not allow any ships in, and attack the port and airfield.. the base will repair and this uses supplies.. If a land base on a rail.. attack it as above and the NEXT base.. diminising the overall supply.. As the JAps you will not be in a situation where the enemy has a lot of supplies in China.. and the Allies HAVE TONS OF SUPPLIES.. and why attack outside China after early 42? As the Allies, the japs lose supplies to feed their troops in a region daialy, cut off the refgion, bomb the resource bases to dust ,as well as the Heavy Industry.. cut rail lines by Sea invasions ..etc.. no supplies and your enemy dies... good luck

[lordmaul13]

Hi

Yeah, I think I had a pretty good handle on denying supplies to islands. Just don't let the convoys in. [:)] I was really more concerned with the land locked bases. I probably could've been clearer. [:)]

Ok, so tell me, what is the determining factor for deciding which engineer unit to take. Do you just take the max number of engineers? Or I notice there are some engineer units that have an AV of 30-40. Do you want a unit that has a little punch of it's own?

One more question. I know armor will move faster, on roads and highways anyway, than infantry. There are also some cav units. How fast are they comared to infantry?

Thaks again.

lordmaul13

[freeboy]

engineers with an assualt value.. cavalry is faster.. armored cavalry is still faster yet...
did the comments about how to attack a base to reduce/deny make sense for land bases?.. if you are Jap player though it will be so very tough outside China..

and regarding all bases.. transports can effectively air supply when used in large numbers.. if possible attack the basesa they fly out of

[lordmaul13]

Let me draw a picture of what I think you're saying. The E's are enemy bases the Y is your base and the - is road.

E1---------E2 -----Y

You want to take E2 so you attack E1 and E2 at the same time (if possible), hampering the flow of supply down the road. Or just put somebody on the road between E1 and E2 which should, I think, accomplish the same objective. Right?

lordmaul13

[freeboy]

that, and bomb the airfield and port.. the base uses supplies to fix this damage and if port you may get port supply hits

[BraveHome]

ORIGINAL: irrelevant


I almost forgot: You must watch the entire ground combat animation. This is the only way to have any inkling of how the attack is progressing. After you sit through the seemingly interminable exchange of bombardments and assaults, you will be rewarded by an exact display of your base and adjusted AV followed by the enemy's base and adjusted AV. These four numbers are crucial, you need to write them down, and write down the follow-up attacks right next to them. In this way you will develop a very good sense of progress over time. If you don't do this, you will have to guess as to when to apply your final shock attack, the coup de gras.

I remember asking for this to be included in the combat summary report, to speed things up (one major GC can take 20 minutes, with 100k+ troops bombarding/attacking).

Wonder if they included in 1.5?

[tsimmonds]

ORIGINAL: BraveHome

I remember asking for this to be included in the combat summary report, to speed things up (one major GC can take 20 minutes, with 100k+ troops bombarding/attacking).

Wonder if they included in 1.5?

No indication of this in the "List of bug fixes and changes in 1.5" thread....

[Larz6235]

Is there anyway to rearrange the order of your ground units? I always have a HQ listed first and they always take a beating.

Larz

[freeboy]

you can see your units by clicking on the units square .. and then sort them, but I dod not beleive this affects what order combat happens.. your hq's are taking losses in combat when you are attacking? what are they set to? change to defense for them maybe

[Kwik E Mart]

Taking a well-defended hex can be a long-term project. Be sure you bring enough stuff to finish the job. You will want to have engineer regiments to knock down the forts. Assaulting engineers also cause considerable casualties among defenders, as do armored regiments. Bring 2 or 3 of each to a big fight.

Combat causes disablements, disruption, fatigue and loss of morale. In a very real sense, who manages these factors better will win the campaign for the hex. To recover from these, you need support and supplies. You need an assault HQ (an army HQ for IJA, I don't know what the analogous unit is for allied LCAs) for sure, but that by itself will not give you enough support (enough support means "required support" is not in the red for any LCU). As IJ, I have also been bringing an air HQ of some sort, plus an aviation regiment. These have large numbers of support squads, and they will come in quite handy after you take the hex: you will be able to base a/c there the next day after it falls....I brought the Southern Area Army HQ (with prep points) to my assault on Singapore....

Also bring lots of artillery, three or four regiments are good if you are going after an objective defended by up to 50-75,000 enemy. You probably will not be assaulting every day, as your infantry will most likely need to rest in order to recover disruption and fatigue, so you will want to have artillery to keep up the pressure on the days you rest your infantry.

I like to assault when all my main assault units have recovered disruption/fatigue to 20/50 at the worst. Do not assault with LCUs with worse disruption/fatigue levels than these, except in the most urgent of circumstances. I would consider something like the following to be urgent: your last shock attack knocked the enemy's forts from 1 down to 0. Your attack was a 1-to-1; the ground combat animation showed you had 2000 actual AV adjusted to 1000, while the enemy was 800 adjusted to 600. There is a group of enemy LCUs in the adjacent hex. I would make another shock attack regardless of the state of my LCUs (with one exception), because you are very close to taking the hex, but the enemy could easily have reinforcements arriving at any time. The exception would be if supply was green or orange before the last attack but is now in the red. Unsupplied LCUs attack very poorly. If your supply goes red, guess what? You just became the defender.....

A game consideration is that the "top" assaulting LCU (not an HQ) in your "stack" will take the heaviest casualties. If that "top" unit is one of your most important assault elements (eg., an IJA division) your attacks will be delayed by the necessity for this unit to recover from disruption/fatigue. Find smaller infantry units that will stack on top of your main units and take the heat for them. An important consideration for defense as well as attack.

Another game consideration is that if the enemy has enough supply, he may be rebuilding his fort levels even as you are taking them down. To prevent this do airfield or port strikes to keep some level of damage there for him to repair. As long as his engineers have damage to repair they will not be rebuilding forts. Also this burns up his supply. Yesyesyes, gamey, but who does not do this?

One important thing to keep in mind is that naval bombardment, while powerful, can mislead you. The combat report may show them causing large numbers of casualties, but their effect is concentrated among support units. While in the long run this is very effective in wearing down an enemy defense, in the short term a big bombardment will not have much effect at all in the enemy's defensive strength. The effect is in reducing his ability to recover from your assaults in between times while you rest your troops.

Air support can be decisive. If your last attack was a 1-to-1 deliberate assault, shock attacking the very next turn in conjunction with a powerful ground support strike will almost always get you that 2-to-1. Ground support strikes generally cause disablements/disruption among the enemy's most powerful--and therefore most important--LCU. This hits directly at his ability to resist your assault. The effect is fleeting however; the following turn the affected LCU will most likely have recovered from 80% or more of the effect of the air strike. You have to assault the same turn to get the full benefit.

The three most important things (unless you have enough juice to get the 2-to-1 on the first attack): support, supply and preparation points.

Start with a bombardment attack. This will show you exactly what you are up against. If you are supremely confident, or if the enemy does a bombardment attack first (thus showing you what he has), start making deliberate assaults. Repeat as you recover disruption/fatigue. When you finally get the magic 1-to-1 with no forts, do a shock attack the following turn. If the enemy has many forts and you have many engineers and are getting 2-to-1 or better, consider making shock attacks sooner, you may take down multiple fort levels in a single turn.

I almost forgot: You must watch the entire ground combat animation. This is the only way to have any inkling of how the attack is progressing. After you sit through the seemingly interminable exchange of bombardments and assaults, you will be rewarded by an exact display of your base and adjusted AV followed by the enemy's base and adjusted AV. These four numbers are crucial, you need to write them down, and write down the follow-up attacks right next to them. In this way you will develop a very good sense of progress over time. If you don't do this, you will have to guess as to when to apply your final shock attack, the coup de gras.

All the above is based on the assumption that your supply is not in the red. If your supply is in the red, do not attack, unless you know that have overwhelming strength in the hex.

< Message edited by irrelevant -- 4/18/2005 2:56:27 AM >

irrelevant,
this is an excellent summary[&o]...would it be possible to get your thoughts from the other side? i.e., from the chinese side?

thanks

[tsimmonds]

would it be possible to get your thoughts from the other side? i.e., from the chinese side?

Wouldn't be worth much, I never played the allies; as a matter of fact I have never even looked at the Chinese LCUs[;)]

Here's an idea though, now that I think about it. In attacking or defending, break down your most important LCUs. Not only does this dilute the effects of any enemy air strikes, it moves these key units to the bottom of your stack where they are, for whatever reason, less vulnerable to disruption, fatigue, and especially disablements as a result of enemy fire.

[tsimmonds]

Is there anyway to rearrange the order of your ground units?

No, stacking order is based on the unit ID# from the database. But, if you break an LCU down into its components, they will have high unit ID#s, and so will go to the bottom of the stack.

[Titanwarrior89]

No wonder i am loosing in our game.[:D]

[tsimmonds]

ORIGINAL: Titanwarrior89

No wonder i am loosing in our game.[:D]

Ground combat only seems to be simple.[;)]

[scout1]

I almost forgot: You must watch the entire ground combat animation.

To quote a great stateman .... " That sucks". Information shouldn't be exclusively available to only those who are watching the combat animations. Come'on, is this a GG game or what ....

I guess it is [;)]