Reluctant Offensive - Tyronec vs Axis AI

[tyronec]

Same game from the other side.
I leave two stacks guarding the passes and conduct a slow retreat to the south.
Position at T3.

[tyronec]

T5.
Not sure how this happened, they seemed to have passed through my screening units.
Perhaps recon doesn't restrict movement ?

[tyronec]

T8.
Don't understand this one, there were no allied aircraft so why the aircraft losses ?

[tyronec]

T9.
The retreat continues.
That MG battalion is about to get trapped because is not carrying out it's move orders.

[tyronec]

T10
Suicide attack on one of the passes... Should the AI not look at the odds ?

[tyronec]

T12.
Position at the passes has settled down to just bombardments by both sides.
My MG unit is about to die.
The other units are all allowed to escape.

[tyronec]

T12
A unit eliminated by the navy. Seems extreme but I haven't read up on this campaign.

[tyronec]

T15.
An HQ left out on a limb.

[tyronec]

T17.
Italians are over extended. The unit next to Sofafi is dead meat and with the allied reinforcements having arrived all the units to the East will gradually get picked off.

[tyronec]

T18.
I decided to stop at this stage. The Italians are not going to get any further and are about to see a lot of their forces eliminated.

Strategically the AI played OK, making the right hook through the desert. Tactically it was weak. At the passes it didn't attack with a good stack of units.
In the open terrain it didn't advance with a solid front line, thus allowing units to be surrounded and eliminated. Sometimes the lead units were HQs. Given the chance to cut off and eliminate allied units it only seemed to do so by accident.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: tyronec

T5.
Not sure how this happened, they seemed to have passed through my screening units.
Perhaps recon doesn't restrict movement ?

ZOCs are soft and recon units retreat if in contact with the enemy unless ordered to attack, move or defend orders set to Hold At All Costs.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: tyronec

T8.
Don't understand this one, there were no allied aircraft so why the aircraft losses ?

That was the British AAA. All units have some organic AA capability. Dedicated AAA units protect neighbouring units too.

[tyronec]

quote:

ORIGINAL: tyronec

T5.
Not sure how this happened, they seemed to have passed through my screening units.
Perhaps recon doesn't restrict movement ?






ZOCs are soft and recon units retreat if in contact with the enemy unless ordered to attack, move or defend orders set to Hold At All Costs.

What does 'soft' ZOCs mean ?
I thought you could not move between ZOCs of the same unit, that being the case my recon units should have been close enough together to stop anything getting through.
Of course they could have got around my left flank, they might even have been there from the previous turn.
Regarding the air losses have only just spotted where you can see the unit strength on the counter so will check that next time.

[Saint Ruth]

ORIGINAL: tyronec
What does 'soft' ZOCs mean ?
I thought you could not move between ZOCs of the same unit, that being the case my recon units should have been close enough together to stop anything getting through.
Of course they could have got around my left flank, they might even have been there from the previous turn.
Regarding the air losses have only just spotted where you can see the unit strength on the counter so will check that next time.

"Hard" ZOC means you enter an enemy ZOC and you stop. This has "soft" ZOC which means the strength of the ZOC affects your movement, so if the ZOC is weak (a low value), it'll affect enemy movement (slow it down by making the enemy units pay more move points to move, but will not stop enemy moves).

Recon units won't stop enemy units as they automatically run away from enemy units (unless they have Hold At All Cost orders).

For that attack at bad odds, the AI plays with Fog Of War too. Perhaps its intel was low on that hex and didn't realise the odds were so bad?

[JasonPratt]

Playing the same mission myself, on a rather different strategy, I saw the AI bump some isolated units into the Sollum Barracks to get murdered by my stack there. That happened on Turn 1; it didn't happen again (through a few game days of test playing). The AI was clearly sending units ahead of its scouting capability and blundered into my pieces, which is understandable since Italy has to move quick to get things done by the end of the mission.

For the next couple of days, the AI wore away at the Barracks with art and air attacks. I didn't play long enough to see a further attack there.

The AI didn't blunder into Halifaya pass and my stack there on Turn 2, and only tried attacking down the clear path a few times (not across the gullies). This is reasonable enough: they've got to block me in so I don't break out and wreck the logistic of their advance, and meanwhile they're probing with some combined air and arty to see if I'll break. Meanwhile they're weathering my defensive guns behind me.

I _did_ see a headquarters up next to the escarpment edge, which I promptly nuked with my newly arrived ships and all the bombers I could throw at it, maybe one of my arties, too. 65% strength lost, hah! It pulled back promptly to less danger. I don't think it was ahead of its crew, however, since other pieces (I discovered soon afterward) were probing down the road toward Sofafi pass, and it may have been trying to support them on a road network, in relation to a corps or divisional HQ behind it (which rolled up, not that far advanced, into my recon range soon afterward).

[JasonPratt]

ORIGINAL: tyronec

T8.
Don't understand this one, there were no allied aircraft so why the aircraft losses ?

I figured out the mystery recently myself. As far as the game is concerned, the "Superior Maneuver" counts as a 1-shift air squadron. That's true for their 10th army main effort, too (I think), but for some reason your anti-air didn't affect it. Their anti-air hit your... well, you know how in the Vietnam War American officers, including generals, would stack up in helicopters over the battlefield to direct troops, and sometimes they got shot at and shot down? It's like that, basically. [X(]

It's a handy game mechanic, which shouldn't take damage but which does because of how the mechanic works. On the other hand, it ought to take exhaustion -- which it does, because of how the mechanic works, just as if the tactic was really a bomber squadron.

Whether it increases the intensity of an attack like an air squadron, I can't tell. Mechanically it should, but I don't recall ever seeing the 10th Army have that effect. I am presuming that the Italian intensity was low because your arty countered their arty effect, and (if the pseudo-air effect also affects intensity) your pseudo-air effect countered their pseudo-air effect.