How to take a well defended city?

Advanced Tactics is a versatile turn-based strategy system that gives gamers the chance to wage almost any battle in any time period. The initial release focuses on World War II and includes a number of historical scenarios as well as a full editor! This forum supports both the original Advanced Tactics and the new and improved Advanced Tactics: Gold Edition.

Moderator: Vic

Post Reply
GaryChildress
Posts: 6746
Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2005 3:41 pm
Location: The Divided Nations of Earth

How to take a well defended city?

Post by GaryChildress »

What is the best means of capturing a city that is pretty well defended? Playing against the AI. IIRC I believe artillery is supposed to be the best unit for subduing city defenses, but how would I go about it. Should I bombard the city a few turns and then attack with tanks or riflemen or what?

Thank you for any pointers.
User avatar
Twotribes
Posts: 6466
Joined: Fri Feb 15, 2002 10:00 am
Location: Jacksonville NC
Contact:

RE: How to take a well defended city?

Post by Twotribes »

If you, can surround the city, bombard with artillery and do tactical airstrikes,then when you think they are ready attack from all sides.I know armor is not good in cities but I would advice using some in the assault.
Favoritism is alive and well here.
Philo32b
Posts: 96
Joined: Mon Jul 09, 2012 2:02 am

RE: How to take a well defended city?

Post by Philo32b »

I agree with attacking from as many sides as you can. I pound with artillery first, then move in with multiple squads consisting of 20 SMG plus 1 Armored Car. The SMG get a nice bonus in urban fights, and the AC adds some resilience without risking losing outright tanks. This combination has been quite useful for me.

Also note that the AI could well have tons of troops and tanks and AA defending in the city, well exceeding the combat weight limits for itself. Which means you can really turn it into a bloodbath. After this happens a couple of times, the SMG and AC get an enormous amount of experience.
User avatar
ironduke1955
Posts: 2037
Joined: Wed May 17, 2006 9:52 am
Location: UK

RE: How to take a well defended city?

Post by ironduke1955 »

The most important factor is Entrenchment, if a defending unit has been stationary in a city for enough turns it will have built maximum entrenchment value say 180+. If you are attacking the city then artillery is the best means of reducing the entrenchment value of the defending units air units can also do the same job though not as effectively, if you are attacking with pure infantry then expect huge losses even if the defenders have been reduced considerably, a successful attack infantry against infantry requires 9 to 1 odds. The quality of the attackers in experience is a major factor mortar's infantry guns SMG will help but high Experience = Morale means the attackers will stay in the fight long enough to take the city. At my last check armor especially armor with high morale will stay in the fight longer and take cities that they have no right to take, with few casualties, purists will argue that this is not historically accurate I will agree to a certain extent. But it was common practice for infantry to advance down a street behind a tank, if I was street clearing its where I would want to be, in the ruins of Stalingrad not so useful. Reducing the readiness of defending units is another way to go cut of supply and bombard the city to zero production capacity is another option, but it take several turns, but then some sieges did last several years like Leningrad.
Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?

GaryChildress
Posts: 6746
Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2005 3:41 pm
Location: The Divided Nations of Earth

RE: How to take a well defended city?

Post by GaryChildress »

What about engineers? Are there any benefits to attacking with engineers? Or do engineers not have any bonuses against entrenchment like they do in other games.

BTW: I ended up taking one of the two cities I'm currently laying siege to. I must have had something like 9:1 odds or more maybe when I attacked. It was pretty bloody for me as well but I took it on my first attack, although I'd been bombarding it with 8 artillery pieces for about 5 or 6 turns before my attack.
User avatar
ironduke1955
Posts: 2037
Joined: Wed May 17, 2006 9:52 am
Location: UK

RE: How to take a well defended city?

Post by ironduke1955 »

I think combat engineers would be useful but the engineers in the game they are just poor infantry with construction abilities. Not like the combat engineers used all over the globe in the second world war, perhaps they could be added in a MOD, but they are not in the basic game, or at least not since I last looked. Your artillery attacks most certainly reduced the entrenchment of the units in the city, and made the attack possible the more pieces of artillery that can be brought to bare the better, heavier the guns the better. The problem comes when you have defenders not just entrenched but with high experience, then you are in for a bloodbath, SMG also have a bonus in city fighting when attacking regular riflemen, as you would expect. As I said I used to play the Random Game PVP, and cities with well entrenched infantry would be taken by light tanks much to my dismay, no infantry just pure tanks. the result would be varied in terms of the casualties the tanks sustained and sometimes they would fail, but that it was possible to capture a city with light tanks only, was a minor irritation for me.
Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?

GaryChildress
Posts: 6746
Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2005 3:41 pm
Location: The Divided Nations of Earth

RE: How to take a well defended city?

Post by GaryChildress »

Well I'm currently laying siege to the second city with 16 guns, two batteries of 8 guns each. After each bombardment the "health" indicator on the city vanishes below the red so hopefully it shouldn't take too much longer for it to fall as well.
GaryChildress
Posts: 6746
Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2005 3:41 pm
Location: The Divided Nations of Earth

RE: How to take a well defended city?

Post by GaryChildress »

Siege over. Captured two cities. The most helpful factor was that both cities were on their own and cut off from the main part of the AI opponent's empire so I could concentrate on the cities by themselves and the defenders directly around them. Hopefully this will be my first win, although it is a relatively easy map setup that the game spawned for me.
Josh
Posts: 2568
Joined: Tue May 09, 2000 8:00 am
Location: Leeuwarden, Netherlands

RE: How to take a well defended city?

Post by Josh »

Not much to add to the advice given above. Indeed the key is mass artillery (10-15 tubes, preferrably Heavy tubes) and attack from multiple hexes (and if possible have all the attacking units subordinate to the same HQ = gets you more bonus). Now the AI can have humongous loads of units in a city (it's an AI after all...) and the main thing about their strength is not the quantity but the readiness of these units, the lower that green bar the better. Less than 10% readiness is ripe for the kill.
As IronDuke pointed out you can safely use some armour for the attack as well, they give you some more puchingpower, but the mainattacking force should be Submachine gunners with some AT guns, Inf guns, Mortars and the like. And some Armour.
Never use (much) more than 50 points per hex you attack from. The math is 50-100 per 1-2 hexes, then add 50 per extra hex. If you have all the hexes around a city there's no escape route for the AI and you take them all.
GrumpyMel
Posts: 864
Joined: Fri Dec 28, 2007 8:37 pm

RE: How to take a well defended city?

Post by GrumpyMel »

Yup, concentric attacks, lots of artillery and air support, combined arms. Works for cities as well as other hex's. Armor doesn't fight as well in urban terrain as elsewhere but they can still pack a whallop when well supported by infantry, especially if the defender doesn't have good AT capability. If you can isolate the city from other supply sources, you can starve out the defense as well. Even if the city has an HQ which is getting supply directly from the city.... you can strat bomb the city down to no production and it generaly won't be able to keep it's defenders in supply from what it repairs each turn.
User avatar
Vic
Posts: 9282
Joined: Mon May 17, 2004 2:17 pm
Contact:

RE: How to take a well defended city?

Post by Vic »

Yes and production takes place before auto-repair. So keeping the enemy city at 0 structural points at the end of your turn should do the job.
(though AI as opposed to human player might have a small advantage here)

http://www.vrdesigns.nl/atwiki/doku.php ... oop_screen

Only way a human enemy can still get supplies in when you have city encircled and to 0 structural points is by airdrop. But well... that can be fixed with some fighters and flak around the city.

best wishes,
Vic
Visit www.vrdesigns.net for the latest news, polls, screenshots and blogs on Shadow Empire, Decisive Campaigns and Advanced Tactics
Post Reply

Return to “Advanced Tactics Series”