Artillery commitment in hasty / deliberate attack v01.02.08

[Joch1955]

Interesting discussions. In all WitX games, I always viewed a "Hasty attack" as an attack "off the march", i.e. Armored units barrelling through opposition as it encounters them. So yes, makes sense the attacker would not have access to artillery support. re: the defender, that is a bit more tricky, yes a prepared position would generally have artillery support pre-registered against likely avenues of attack. However, a hasty attack is generally a surprise attack so the defender will not always be able to bring all its artillery into play so there should be limits, i.e. as already spelled out in 23.4.1 and 23.6.

Another point to bear in mind is that based on my years of playing Wite1, WitW and now Wite2, "Hasty Attacks" generally work as you would expect,i.e. fine against weak opposition, but you can easily get a bloody nose if you get too ambitious. I would be careful about making changes that would make them substantially weaker.

[AlbertN]

If unit organic artillery fires normally - for both ends - I think it's fine.
SU from HQs should not be involved - artilleries or not, due to the nature of the 'hasty' attack. As per an attack on the go.

[Stamb]

Now the question is if artillery is committed to a battle but does not fire - will it still lose CPP?

[jubjub]

ORIGINAL: Stamb

Now the question is if artillery is committed to a battle but does not fire - will it still lose CPP?

Yep, it’s a big pain, because then they’re less likely to commit defensively when your panzers are getting attacked.

[GibsonPete]

With a turn being a weeklong the idea of a true meeting engagement does not occur. The attacker decides how many MPs he is going to use to attack a defender who may or may not be in a prepared position. The attacker may conduct one to five hasty attacks or conduct one or two deliberate attacks. in a modern battle restricting indirect fire use to only a deliberate attack makes little sense. To assume the defender or attacker could not bring non divisional mortars, howitzers, cannons or guns to bear is not logical. Most indirect fire tubes can be laid and prepared to fire within ten or fewer minutes. If communication is the concern, then that would be an issue whether the attack is designated a 'hasty or deliberate'.

1) Consider increasing the MP cost of Hasty by one and allow Indirect fire.
2) Consider an increased leader check cost to include indirect fire to Hasty attack.
3) Consider a single direct support indirect fire battalion per stack in a hasty attack and two for the defender.

Something to discuss and kick around.

[K62_]

ORIGINAL: GibsonPete

With a turn being a weeklong the idea of a true meeting engagement does not occur. The attacker decides how many MPs he is going to use to attack a defender who may or may not be in a prepared position. The attacker may conduct one to five hasty attacks or conduct one or two deliberate attacks. in a modern battle restricting indirect fire use to only a deliberate attack makes little sense. To assume the defender or attacker could not bring non divisional mortars, howitzers, cannons or guns to bear is not logical. Most indirect fire tubes can be laid and prepared to fire within ten or fewer minutes. If communication is the concern, then that would be an issue whether the attack is designated a 'hasty or deliberate'.

1) Consider increasing the MP cost of Hasty by one and allow Indirect fire.
2) Consider an increased leader check cost to include indirect fire to Hasty attack.
3) Consider a single direct support indirect fire battalion per stack in a hasty attack and two for the defender.

Something to discuss and kick around.

In a week long turn a mobile unit can spend up to 50 MPs. A hasty attack is 3 MPs, corresponding to an interval as short as 10 hours. (Possibly shorter if the unit is inactive at night.) In these 10 hours they have to find, fight and drive off an enemy located over an area of 10x10 miles. The idea that heavy artillery could be deployed effectively into the attack plan under such conditions seems a bit challenging. By contrast, a deliberate attack at 16 MPs corresponds to a time interval of over two days.

[ShaggyHiK]

German players are now abusing the mechanics of the game with Hasty attacks. The USSR may have strong divisions and good positions with the support of a large number of art regiments, but the Germans conduct a Hasty attack, which leads to the fact that the Soviet troops cannot use their advantage, not in territory, not in fortifications, not artillery.
Moreover, such an attack does not cost the German player anything in terms of losses, not in terms of action points, which does not even allow creating any delays in the German offensive.
I am sure that he is working in about the same way with Germany in defense for 44 years, but as a rule, German players do not sit in defense for a long time and late scenarios do not prefer the main scenario from 41 years old, so they do not face this fully.

[ShaggyHiK]

error

[Iam5not8]

Hasty attacks should be limited to 1 unit, not a stack of 3 divisions. The coordination needed for an assault with different divisions can not be done in this kind of engagement.

[ShaggyHiK]

ORIGINAL: Iam5not8

Hasty attacks should be limited to 1 unit, not a stack of 3 divisions. The coordination needed for an assault with different divisions can not be done in this kind of engagement.

I'm not sure that such a solution can be considered adequate, because the problem is not that the Germans use 3 divisions in hasty attacks, but that the conditions in which the defender turns out to be in comparison with the attacker in combat, are wrong. The point is not how the artillery fires directly in battle, but because in hasty attacks, the attacker uses the TOE that he has much more efficiently, and the defender does not use his heavy weapons at all.

[DeletedUser44]

ORIGINAL: ShaggyHiK

ORIGINAL: Iam5not8

Hasty attacks should be limited to 1 unit, not a stack of 3 divisions. The coordination needed for an assault with different divisions can not be done in this kind of engagement.

I'm not sure that such a solution can be considered adequate, because the problem is not that the Germans use 3 divisions in hasty attacks, but that the conditions in which the defender turns out to be in comparison with the attacker in combat, are wrong. The point is not how the artillery fires directly in battle, but because in hasty attacks, the attacker uses the TOE that he has much more efficiently, and the defender does not use his heavy weapons at all.

Shaggy, I admit I only became aware of certain equipment types not firing, independently of this thread, about a day or 2 before its posting.

When I discovered it, it struck me as odd. There were 2 things that struck me as off.
- I was inclined to feel that all the defending elements should be participating.
- I was inclined to feel that the Self-Propelled Arty should be firing on attack.

(even if caught on-the-move and received an emergency fire mission, our firing batteries could be quickly deployed, laid-in & registered in about 15min. At that point, we are ready to handle fire missions. If anyone wants to challenge that, the M109A6 Paladin can do it in about 60 secs - but it doesn't need battalion-level fire direction control (FDC))

But you undermine your credibility and even part of your argument by going over-board and saying wacky things like "and the Germans are abusing it". I would wager that most didn't even know. Only way to learn this is by clicking the right combination of Combat Results tabs and link-buttons.

Additionally, there is a bit of a penalty on activating participating SUs for hasty attacks. I believe it really kicks in if you are required to move the associated HQ, which, for the motorized korps is going to be required quite often, to stay within 5 hexes.

More times than not, my mobile formations receive no SU support because of the initial advance rate and trying to catch up with 'Sir Robin', before he bravely runs away.

I am more inclined to believe that removing certain defending elements subjected to hasty attacks may have been an oversight. (i can see where, when coding, disabling certain elements was, inadvertently, applied to both sides)

Relax, it will get worked out....

[ShaggyHiK]

ORIGINAL: Sauron_II

ORIGINAL: ShaggyHiK

ORIGINAL: Iam5not8

Hasty attacks should be limited to 1 unit, not a stack of 3 divisions. The coordination needed for an assault with different divisions can not be done in this kind of engagement.

I'm not sure that such a solution can be considered adequate, because the problem is not that the Germans use 3 divisions in hasty attacks, but that the conditions in which the defender turns out to be in comparison with the attacker in combat, are wrong. The point is not how the artillery fires directly in battle, but because in hasty attacks, the attacker uses the TOE that he has much more efficiently, and the defender does not use his heavy weapons at all.

Shaggy, I admit I only became aware of certain equipment types not firing, independently of this thread, about a day or 2 before its posting.

When I discovered it, it struck me as odd. There were 2 things that struck me as off.
- I was inclined to feel that all the defending elements should be participating.
- I was inclined to feel that the Self-Propelled Arty should be firing on attack.

(even if caught on-the-move and received an emergency fire mission, our firing batteries could be quickly deployed, laid-in & registered in about 15min. At that point, we are ready to handle fire missions. If anyone wants to challenge that, the M109A6 Paladin can do it in about 60 secs - but it doesn't need battalion-level fire direction control (FDC))

But you undermine your credibility and even part of your argument by going over-board and saying wacky things like "and the Germans are abusing it". I would wager that most didn't even know. Only way to learn this is by clicking the right combination of Combat Results tabs and link-buttons.

Additionally, there is a bit of a penalty on activating participating SUs for hasty attacks. I believe it really kicks in if you are required to move the associated HQ, which, for the motorized korps is going to be required quite often, to stay within 5 hexes.

More times than not, my mobile formations receive no SU support because of the initial advance rate and trying to catch up with 'Sir Robin', before he bravely runs away.

I am more inclined to believe that removing certain defending elements subjected to hasty attacks may have been an oversight. (i can see where, when coding, disabling certain elements was, inadvertently, applied to both sides)

Relax, it will get worked out....

In this case, I was not mistaken in talking about abuse.
I played with a German player who was aware of the problem and used this disadvantage to the fullest. Of course, many simply did not pay attention to this, not many analyze combat statistics at all to notice this vulnerability, but globally everyone uses attacks outright and gets results regardless of whether they know about it or not.
Don't get it wrong, I'm not trying to blame players for using the standard game tool to achieve in-game goals, I'm just emphasizing that because of the way it works, this creates an unfair advantage.

[tm1]

ORIGINAL: ShaggyHiK

German players are now abusing the mechanics of the game with Hasty attacks. The USSR may have strong divisions and good positions with the support of a large number of art regiments, but the Germans conduct a Hasty attack, which leads to the fact that the Soviet troops cannot use their advantage, not in territory, not in fortifications, not artillery.
Moreover, such an attack does not cost the German player anything in terms of losses, not in terms of action points, which does not even allow creating any delays in the German offensive.
I am sure that he is working in about the same way with Germany in defense for 44 years, but as a rule, German players do not sit in defense for a long time and late scenarios do not prefer the main scenario from 41 years old, so they do not face this fully.

Hi

I am a PVE player and the AI will probably not protest against me for using a hasty attack against it.

I was not aware of this mechanic ( or lack of it ) in the hasty attack. I am trying to read the manual when I can but its a big read but very informative.

I try to follow all the posts and threads and when something is found by the PVP players and discussed and ultimately fixed it benefits all players so I am always grateful to PVP players.

But I cant help but notice and I mean no disrespect but I read a post from you yesterday replying to @loki100 about how Russian artillery had its shortcomings and now just day later your saying that German players across the board are abusing the hasty attack exploit.

I am just wondering where you are getting your information from, I don't doubt that its not happening in certain circumstances with some players that know about it, but I cant see that the entire German players community has cottoned onto the exploit in a 24 hour period.

If this needs to be addressed then I am all for it, anything that makes the game better is fine by me.

cheers

[Stamb]

Maybe it is possible to abuse it, but when i was playing vs Soviet AI and i was making hasty attacks - pretty often there were reserve activations that sometimes turn into scouting attack or strong hold from Soviet side. Once again, maybe it is possible to abuse if you know what you are doing, but it is not like you are attacking with any unit with hasty attack instead of deliberate and you get better results compared to a deliberate attack.

[Stamb]

double post (forum gives 500 error pretty often). Moderators delete this message.

[Stamb]

triple post (forum gives 500 error pretty often). Moderators delete this message.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: Sauron_II
...

Additionally, there is a bit of a penalty on activating participating SUs for hasty attacks. I believe it really kicks in if you are required to move the associated HQ, which, for the motorized korps is going to be required quite often, to stay within 5 hexes....

the 'bit of a penalty' is if you move a HQ you get no SU into a hasty attack at all (23.6.1 of the manual)

ORIGINAL: ShaggyHiK

...
In this case, I was not mistaken in talking about abuse.
I played with a German player who was aware of the problem and used this disadvantage to the fullest. Of course, many simply did not pay attention to this, not many analyze combat statistics at all to notice this vulnerability, but globally everyone uses attacks outright and gets results regardless of whether they know about it or not.
Don't get it wrong, I'm not trying to blame players for using the standard game tool to achieve in-game goals, I'm just emphasizing that because of the way it works, this creates an unfair advantage.

you've been asked already to tone down the comments, there is no abuse

a hasty attack carries a cluster of problems. Often no SU commitment (HQ move), if hitting a target with a low DL then a much larger risk of a nasty beating due to the 'ambush' routines

Most German players need to use hasty attacks in both 1941 and 1942, knowing when and where to make this gamble is a key part to good game play

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: loki100

a hasty attack carries a cluster of problems. Often no SU commitment (HQ move), if hitting a target with a low DL then a much larger risk of a nasty beating due to the 'ambush' routines

DL stands for what?

[loki100]

apols - Detection Level, its one of Gary's sub-routines in the combat engine so if you attack a poorly reconned unit its not just the cv that can be wrong but you can get hit by adverse combat events too

[Erik Rutins]

Hasty Attacks are not an exploit and are not being abused, just to be clear. I'd also ask that we stay calm and reasoned in our discussions. There are still tweaks we're working on with regard to the combat engine, but a German player can by design concentrate strong armored/mechanized divisions and do well with Hasty attacks as part of a blitzkrieg strategy. Hasty Attacks are a balanced option that also have drawbacks/trade-offs, not least of which is that you're losing a lot of CPP for a less certain kind of attack.

In 1941, the Germans are very strong relative to the Soviets if played well - they really were, but the Soviets also have their advantages. Still, if 1941 before the winter kicks in feels somewhat like hanging on by your fingernails for the Soviet player and frantically throwing logs into a wood chipper, welcome to history. It really was a hard year for the Red Army in many ways. Each side requires practice and skill to get the best out of them and with time and feedback we will also keep tweaking the balance to improve it and make it as historical as possible.

Regards,

- Erik