A Guide to Land Combat ?

[dave sindel]

Good morning all,

I have read LoBaron's Guide to Air Coordination, and the two wonderful guides that Alfred wrote on Logistics and Ship Repair. I am wondering if there is anything similar regarding Land Combat? Or past threads on the subject ? My searches haven't found much.

I am really, really struggling to understand Land Combat. My attacks and counterattacks have turned into dismal failures. Any thoughts, tips, tactics, "do's and don'ts", that anyone can offer would be most appreciated.

[dr. smith]

"never get involved in a land war in Asia"
~~~~Vizzini

[BBfanboy]

The thing that confuses most new players about land combat is that the raw Assault Value is not the essential part of comparing the balance of forces. Raw AV will let you know if you have enough squads to consider an attack but it is the firepower that you can muster against your opponent that has the biggest effect in deciding the outcome.

A machine gun will obviously give you more firepower than a rifle, but it will not affect an enemy tank, so you need to have anti-tank weapons to balance the firepower of his tanks.

You need artillery too, not just dinky 3" mortars - they help a little with defence against an enemy attack because they are in the open then, but they are almost useless in offence against a dug-in enemy. In a bombardment duel with enemy artillery you want to have heavy guns with long range. The 155 mm "Long Tom" is ideal for this. The Japanese have some really heavy guns up to about 350mm.

Don't neglect the leaders of you units - they can save the day with good moves or hand the enemy a victory with bad ones. Leadership, Land Skill and Aggression are the most important characteristics. Political Points are scarce so buy the best leaders for you biggest, most experienced units first.

Monitor the disruption, morale and fatigue levels of your units. If these are low do not seek battle. Many players arrange to rotate units out of a lengthy battle to recuperate and replace losses.

Supply is absolutely essential to conducting combat. A unit out of supply will fight (at best) at 25% of the raw AV. And don't be fooled by the standard supply needs of the unit on the unit screen. That reflects a unit doing routine stuff or training - not combat. Combat will accelerate the supply usage by many times. Plan on having at least 10X the daily needs supply for a tough battle.

Do not Shock Attack against a well-fortified enemy position where they have supply or lots of artillery. Shock attacks are very disruptive on your own troops and losses can be very high even if the SA is successful. Reserve your SA until the enemy units show signs of cracking - e.g. when your Deliberate Attack starts to cause more destroyed enemy squads than disabled ones.

Those are just a few of my personal rules of thumb. I am by no means an expert in the land war game so others may have different advice. Much will depend on the risk you are comfortable with and your loss tolerance. Masters of the game will sacrifice significant numbers of troops to gain strategic position but I rarely try things without overwhelming strength. Pick your own style. Good Luck! [:)]

[RogerJNeilson]

A lot of ground combats are pretty much 'run overs'.

Where they are not it is good to develop a way of pulling the 'history' leading up to it and any continued combat from the Combat reports, you can glean an awful lot from looking at these when combined together. Individual combats vary because of the 'die rolls' but you can see trends.

Its about getting the right troop mix, the right commander and making the enemy pay for being there.

The other thing to master is the 6 doors on the hex and how they work - in your favour or against.

Its one of the most complex bits of the game, and one of the most enjoyable I find.

Roger

and what BBfanboy said

[dave sindel]

@ BBFanboy - thanks for the tips and insights

[rustysi]

Agree with what's said above, just one more thing I'd like to add at this point. Often when you combine a unit to its division you'll see a pretty good leader as its commander, but he's a sheep in wolfs' clothing. Look closer and you see a Colonel or such, he will not perform well in combat. Get a General (LtGen, MGen, etc.) level officer in there for the best bang for your buck.

Edit: To my knowledge there's no 'how to' for land combat, but if you read some AAR's you'll see how its done.

[RogerJNeilson]

I beg to differ, IMHO the rank is purely 'chrome' and has no bearing on the commander performance.

Roger

[rustysi]

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson 3

I beg to differ, IMHO the rank is purely 'chrome' and has no bearing on the commander performance.

Roger

Has not been my experience. Although it is possible it was just bad die rolls. At any rate once the officer was replaced things turned around.

[RogerJNeilson]

This doesn't say it explicitly, but indicates its their stats that are important - worth a read:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2350193

Roger

[geofflambert]

Unless you have overwhelming force, consider digging in and defending. Some situations may require you to throw everything you have plus your pool table at the enemy (or your beer bottle shrine to your favorite "sports" team) but try to take the hits rather than deliver them if possible.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

The thing that confuses most new players about land combat is that the raw Assault Value is not the essential part of comparing the balance of forces. Raw AV will let you know if you have enough squads to consider an attack but it is the firepower that you can muster against your opponent that has the biggest effect in deciding the outcome.

A machine gun will obviously give you more firepower than a rifle, but it will not affect an enemy tank, so you need to have anti-tank weapons to balance the firepower of his tanks.

You need artillery too, not just dinky 3" mortars - they help a little with defence against an enemy attack because they are in the open then, but they are almost useless in offence against a dug-in enemy. In a bombardment duel with enemy artillery you want to have heavy guns with long range. The 155 mm "Long Tom" is ideal for this. The Japanese have some really heavy guns up to about 350mm.

Don't neglect the leaders of you units - they can save the day with good moves or hand the enemy a victory with bad ones. Leadership, Land Skill and Aggression are the most important characteristics. Political Points are scarce so buy the best leaders for you biggest, most experienced units first.

Monitor the disruption, morale and fatigue levels of your units. If these are low do not seek battle. Many players arrange to rotate units out of a lengthy battle to recuperate and replace losses.

Supply is absolutely essential to conducting combat. A unit out of supply will fight (at best) at 25% of the raw AV. And don't be fooled by the standard supply needs of the unit on the unit screen. That reflects a unit doing routine stuff or training - not combat. Combat will accelerate the supply usage by many times. Plan on having at least 10X the daily needs supply for a tough battle.

Do not Shock Attack against a well-fortified enemy position where they have supply or lots of artillery. Shock attacks are very disruptive on your own troops and losses can be very high even if the SA is successful. Reserve your SA until the enemy units show signs of cracking - e.g. when your Deliberate Attack starts to cause more destroyed enemy squads than disabled ones.

Those are just a few of my personal rules of thumb. I am by no means an expert in the land war game so others may have different advice. Much will depend on the risk you are comfortable with and your loss tolerance. Masters of the game will sacrifice significant numbers of troops to gain strategic position but I rarely try things without overwhelming strength. Pick your own style. Good Luck! [:)]

There are actually two outcomes that you need to consider. The second of them, which BBfanboy mentions here, has to do with firepower. It's how much damage the forces will actually do to each other.

But the first outcome goes back to the raw assault value. This assault value is modified by lots of stuff, including but not limited to:
-leader attributes (land, inspiration, aggression)
-preparation (if defending)
-HQ bonus from prepared HQs within range
-sufficient supply
-morale
-disruption
-fatigue
-forts
-terrain
-shock attack is a *2

Just because you don't see a fatigue(-) doesn't mean fatigue isn't negatively affecting your assault value, when you see it that just means that at least one unit in the combat has reached the threshold for it to be displayed (or not).

Somewhere, there is a list of the multiplier that is applied to the defenders' AV from forts at certain levels, and terrain you can find in a table in the manual. I can't recall whether these are additive or multiplicative (e.g., if you have a *1.5 from forts and a *2 from terrain, if it is *3.5 [additive] or *2 [multiplicative]), and I honestly don't care much as with Japan, I rarely attack after 1942 and as the Allies, defeats can be much more forgiving due to the firepower component. Once you know what those multipliers are at a certain location, you can begin to figure out how much raw AV you will need, assuming optimal conditions (no/low penalties for morale, disruption, fatigue, leaders, and supplies). For example, if your opponent has a defensive multiplier of *3 and a raw AV in the hex of 1000, he is going to have an optimal adjusted AV of somewhere around 3000. That means you will need an adjusted AV of around 6000 if you want to achieve 2:1 odds and force him to retreat (from a non-base hex it seems a 2:1 results in retreat no matter what the "field forts" are at). If in a base hex, it becomes immediately obvious why it is so important to reduce forts.

As you might be able to tell, combat is inherently tilted towards the defender, which is as it should be.

EDIT: oh, yes. I meant to comment about his comment about "dinky" mortars. This is a way in which firepower can indirectly affect adjusted AV. There is a bombardment phase before the "attack" phase in an attack. Bigger (and more) guns will cause more damage to enemy units, which causes their morale, fatigue, and disruption to be negatively affected - which will negatively affect their adjusted AV in the attack.

[rustysi]

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson 3

This doesn't say it explicitly, but indicates its their stats that are important - worth a read:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2350193

Roger

Also, I have never had it confirmed but am sure that you must assign the proper rank. For example, a brigade should be under the command of at least a brigadier, a major general for a division, a smaller unit should have a lt. colonel or full colonel, any combat TF force more than a few ships should be under at least a rear admiral and your front line fighter squadron should have a major in command not a Lt. or Captain. It seems to me that a unit performs better with an average officer of the proper rank than it does with a brilliant lower ranking officer.

It seems that units train better as well.

Perhaps I am wrong but I don't think so.

The above is from that thread and was a post by CRSutton. As I've said I've had instances where a division was performing poorly with a lower ranking officer, who once changed, changed the divisions' performance. Just as a clarification all pertinent stats where checked 'til I realize the lower rank as the last 'fault'. Just sayin'. YMMV.

[geofflambert]

My understanding is that one prominent case of the Soviets benefitting from "ULTRA" was being advised of the day and time when the Wehrmacht would deliver an offensive at Kursk, and the result was a devastating katyusha bombardment of the starting positions.

[BBfanboy]

One small addition to Lokasenna's comments:
- preparation is also important for the attacker in landings on an enemy held shore. It doesn't directly affect the combat but better prep means lower disruption and accidental losses during the landings, and thus more troops ready to fight.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: rustysi

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson 3

I beg to differ, IMHO the rank is purely 'chrome' and has no bearing on the commander performance.

Roger

Has not been my experience. Although it is possible it was just bad die rolls. At any rate once the officer was replaced things turned around.

Roger Neilson is correct. The performance of a commander only relates to his attributes excluding rank.

The only impact of rank in WitP AE is the PP cost of replacing a commander. As a general rule of thumb, replacing higher rank with lower rank costs more PP than the other way around. Some high profile commanders (Nimitz is a good example) are especially costly to replace.

[dave sindel]

Thanks to everyone who commented, and @ Lokasenna - a special thanks for the detailed explanation. That helped my understanding significantly.

[Macclan5]

Yes indeed thank you all.

Very informative.

Additionally I have noted specifically from "Rumble in the South West" AAR by WITPQS esq... that he actually places some units in a large stack on "reserve" and or tasks them to defend and not attack.

1) Reserve is not specifically mentioned in this thread but allows pursuit if I understand correctly ?

2) Allows WITPQs to cycle through bombardments and deliberate attacks so different units stand down and recover their disruption (but not fatigue??)

[HansBolter]

Loka is spot on.

Fatigue and disruption are not reported in combat reports. You need to monitor your own and consider the state of your opponent's.

IN the LCU interface, not the individual LCU interface, but the list of all LCUs in a hex, in the upper right corner is clickable text that toggles "show hard" and "show soft".

Click this text and you get a listing of stats often overlooked if you only use the default view of the interface.

This list provides many useful stats including fatigue and disruption.

It's also good to remember that the combat report itself is extremely misleading, especially for us old board gamers who automatically read combat odds as determining the outcome.

This is not the case in WITPAE. The combat odds are only calculated AFTER all damage has been incurred from units firing on units and is ONLY used to determine if fort levels are reduced and/or if a retreat is forced.

Firepower is everything in land combat.

Combat odds mean very little.

[dave sindel]

@ Hans - I grew up playing Avalon Hill board games - with "zones of control" and the odds easily calculated from the numbers on the unit counters. Perhaps that's part of my difficulty in understanding WITPAE combat. Thanks for the tip on the LCU interface. I'll check that out.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Loka is spot on.

Fatigue and disruption are not reported in combat reports. You need to monitor your own and consider the state of your opponent's.

IN the LCU interface, not the individual LCU interface, but the list of all LCUs in a hex, in the upper right corner is clickable text that toggles "show hard" and "show soft".

Click this text and you get a listing of stats often overlooked if you only use the default view of the interface.

This list provides many useful stats including fatigue and disruption.

It's also good to remember that the combat report itself is extremely misleading, especially for us old board gamers who automatically read combat odds as determining the outcome.

This is not the case in WITPAE. The combat odds are only calculated AFTER all damage has been incurred from units firing on units and is ONLY used to determine if fort levels are reduced and/or if a retreat is forced.

Firepower is everything in land combat.

Combat odds mean very little.

One (really minor) exception.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ground combat at 85,44 (near Nanyang)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 70267 troops, 996 guns, 2044 vehicles, Assault Value = 2225

Defending force 35456 troops, 78 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 874

Japanese adjusted assault: 528

Allied adjusted defense: 880

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 2

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), leaders(+), disruption(-), supply(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
3590 casualties reported
Squads: 104 destroyed, 123 disabled
Non Combat: 43 destroyed, 50 disabled
Engineers: 27 destroyed, 19 disabled
Guns lost 34 (22 destroyed, 12 disabled)
Vehicles lost 152 (38 destroyed, 114 disabled)

Allied ground losses:
1729 casualties reported
Squads: 12 destroyed, 132 disabled
Non Combat: 39 destroyed, 17 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 7 disabled

Does not change anything about the validity of your post though. Totally agree.