Forming Up Point (FUP)

Command Ops: Battles From The Bulge takes the highly acclaimed Airborne Assault engine back to the West Front for the crucial engagements during the Ardennes Offensive. Test your command skills in the fiery crucible of Airborne Assault’s “pausable continuous time” uber-realistic game engine. It's up to you to develop the strategy, issue the orders, set the pace, and try to win the laurels of victory in the cold, shadowy Ardennes.
Command Ops: Highway to the Reich brings us to the setting of one of the most epic and controversial battles of World War II: Operation Market-Garden, covering every major engagement along Hell’s Highway, from the surprise capture of Joe’s Bridge by the Irish Guards a week before the offensive to the final battles on “The Island” south of Arnhem.

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Tzar007
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Forming Up Point (FUP)

Post by Tzar007 »

What rule of thumb in terms of distance between the FUP and the attack point do you use when setting up yourself the FUP for an attack? It's somewhat easier if you can form up under the cover of forest or something, but when you will be attacking on open ground, do you setup the FUP close to the enemy? Far? And what is close to the enemy? 1 km away? 3 km away?
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Arjuna
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RE: Forming Up Point (FUP)

Post by Arjuna »

Ideally an FUP should be out of sight of the enemy and as close to the objective as you can. There are no hard and fast rules as it's always a balance between a number of competing factors of which security, proximity and reachability are just three. It also depends on the capabilities of the enemy you are attacking. If the enemy is just equipped with LMGs then an FUP at 700m would put you outside effective range. But an enemy equipped with HMGs is going to force you back to 1500 or 2000m. It also varies on the type of force you are. If you are hardened as in AFVs then you need top be concerned with the enemy' anti armour fire not his APer fire. This will often see a friendly tank force form up 2500m from the objective if the enemy has tanks or good long range AT guns but maybe only 1000m if they do not have long range AT. However, if your force is mixed with soft infantry units as well as tanks then you need to consider both types of enemy fire and you often have to compromise because you don't want to fatigue the grunts by assaulting a huge distance.
Dave "Arjuna" O'Connor
www.panthergames.com
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Tzar007
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Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2004 3:57 pm
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada

RE: Forming Up Point (FUP)

Post by Tzar007 »

Thanks Arjuna. Did not think about the mix of weapons of the enemy force in front of the attack in judging the safe distance to form up. That gives me some pointers.
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