Attack Assault battles

[RERomine]

There's no doubt an assaulting AI can be beat, even if it has a 2.5:1 advantage. I just finished a battle where I estimate I spent 11,000 on defense. This was a February, 1944 battle. It's really difficult to say how much the AI spent because 27,500 points is going to cause it to run into the 500 unit limit. I got a decisive victory defending against that assault.

I'm just saying that a person controlling the same assaulting force could well have won.

[RT-Baseman]

Originally Posted by RERomine

There's no doubt an assaulting AI can be beat, even if it has a 2.5:1 advantage. I just finished a battle where I estimate I spent 11,000 on defense. This was a February, 1944 battle. It's really difficult to say how much the AI spent because 27,500 points is going to cause it to run into the 500 unit limit. I got a decisive victory defending against that assault.

I'm just saying that a person controlling the same assaulting force could well have won.

Carl von Clausewitz: 6:1 advantage

maybe the ai can win with this odd?

[RERomine]

Originally Posted by RT-Baseman

Carl von Clausewitz: 6:1 advantage

maybe the ai can win with this odd?

Ouch! The way the AI takes artillery, if you don't have fast artillery on, you could end your turn and go on holiday while it fires

[RT-Baseman]

Originally Posted by RERomine

Ouch! The way the AI takes artillery, if you don't have fast artillery on, you could end your turn and go on holiday while it fires

Yes, of course. But the rounds need time to be fired. An dyou can go shopping in zhe meantime.

Carl von Clauswitz had the opinion, that an 6:1 odd is a goal an attacker should have, if he wanted to win an attack (military treatise "On war"). Maybe it ist worth a try, to bulid a scenario with this odds and try to defend succesful?

[RERomine]

Originally Posted by RT-Baseman

Carl von Clauswitz had the opinion, that an 6:1 odd is a goal an attacker should have, if he wanted to win an attack (military treatise "On war"). Maybe it ist worth a try, to bulid a scenario with this odds and try to defend succesful?

I think that premise of 6:1 odds held even into the modern era, IIRC. Western military strategy was to destroy attacking Warsaw pact forces at a rate of 5:1 to effectively maintain what in game terms would be a draw. Consequently, you could conclude that 6:1 odds would be considered to be overwhelming. I don't think that strategy was built on standing fast, however. It was more of a retrograde strategy where land was exchanged for time to mobilize forces necessary to execute offensive operations.

Against the AI, a retrograde strategy might be difficult. You could prepare several positions, at least for infantry and fall back to those. It would involve surrendering the flags. In a large enough battle, it's possible to inflict so many casualties on the AI assaulting forces you can do no worse than a draw even if you lose all the flags and have your force totally destroyed.

Terrain, visibility, force experience and time all play a factor in that, yet what you suggest is interesting. It's probably not possible for a defender to win at those odds in game terms. Displacing to alternate positions might not be possible if the AI is blowing the countryside apart with artillery. The defenders coming out of their entrenchments could be a sure way to get them destroyed.

I might try it anyhow since most of my defends are within campaigns where I have to use the force I've built for all mission types and not just defends. That leaves me with tanks that may not be suited for defensive actions. A hand picked defensive force might do better.

[RERomine]

Originally Posted by RT-Baseman

Carl von Clauswitz had the opinion, that an 6:1 odd is a goal an attacker should have, if he wanted to win an attack (military treatise "On war"). Maybe it ist worth a try, to bulid a scenario with this odds and try to defend succesful?

I'm trying it. My defending force is 4,000 points and I gave the AI assault force 24,000 points to use. Now, I get to find out if it's Custer's Last Stand or Rorke's Drift.

[PanzerBob]

It is worth noting those odds do not have to be across the front, creating those odds locally at your break-though point(s) can achieve the same result.

It is also worth taking into account that the more technically advanced your force is, how driven your troops are and even terrain, amongst many other factors, can play roles as Combat Modifiers. Many of Germany's early war achievements were against Armies who on paper should have been able to hand the Wehrmacht it's A**! However, many things contributed to the Wehrmacht creating the correct odds to win these battles. T o put Combat Modifiers another way, attach an Apache Attack Helicopter to an American Mechanized Company with an ammo supply, and the German Force in a short time would know the meaning of CM’s and Hellfire!!!

History is rift with Battles and Wars won against what should have been unbeatable numbers. There are attempts at formulating some aspects of how these combat modifiers actually modify the odds, but IMHO if you study the battles besides the military science involved, in most of these victories a lot of military art comes into play. That is to say the effect that the Leaders, the troops and their fusion with their engines of war had in those conflicts, these factors are much harder to quantify. There are certainly cases where even the Generals of either side when questioned as to what went wrong or right, especially right after the fray, neither could tell you until giving it much study or many others gave it much study as to what did happen. To this day some of those battles still leave room for plenty of discussion.

We here who fight the battles we fight come away from some battles thinking the very same things, especially when the Commanders are both human......

Another way of looking at this as well is subjectively, what does a force consider victory? On paper the USSR should have folded as quickly as Hitler envisioned, (even the Allies believed this at first) no one counted on the USSR being so willing to take much punishment in order to regroup and start coming out swinging. In retrospect, it is easy to see how the early defeats in Russia were not so much the victories the Germans believed they achieved.

Bottom-line IMHO is Odds are a starting place at best, a guideline if you will, something a Commander has to use his many assets to create, to forge the conditions to victory, at their worse Odds are not to be treated as a numbers game alone.

Bob out

[RERomine]

I figured it was just something worth giving a shot. My position is more of a 360 degree fortress than a line that I don't allow the AI forces to cross. I'm basically trying to not lose. If I win, all the better. Surviving is not really necessary given the extreme odds. I just need to inflict heavy casualties on the AI forces. At this point, it has 34 tanks burning and 10 immobilized with another 24 burning half-tracks. I'm holding my perimeter at the moment.

One mistake I did make in my set-up was I put a line of wire followed by a line of mines. The wire slows down the AI units, meaning they hit the mines as their first hex moved. They are less likely to set one off. I should have reversed it, mines outside the wire.

My force is three German grenadier companies, nine 50mm ATGs, bunkers to hide from artillery in, six pillboxes and artillery.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by PanzerBob

History is rift with Battles and Wars won against what should have been unbeatable numbers.

OK. For fun lets see if anyone can figure out this one. It's a battle fought sometime between 500 BC and the present

Two armies

One is half the size it was 10 weeks earlier and it's bedraggled soldiers
have been on a forced march to reach safety for 18 gruelling days being
harassed by the enemy. The month is October and the weather has been a cold
and rainy. Many of the troops have dysentery that is so bad than many have
cut the bottoms out of their pants and underwear so nature can take it's
course more easily. Some are reportedly shoeless as the campaign has worn
out their boots and shoes

The other army is at least 4 times larger and may be even as much as 6
times larger and made up mostly of hardened veterans who had spent their
lives in arms in both foreign and civil wars. They are well fed and well
rested and spoiling for as fight to avenge the loss a month earlier of an
important town and port to these invaders. So many well equipped men have
shown up to fight for the nations honour that less well equipped militiamen
were sent home.

Four hours later, in defiance of all logic and the received military wisdom
at the time the larger army is utterly and decisively destroyed and the
smaller one has lost a only a small fraction of it's troops in comparison.

Mud plays a major factor in this battle .

Name the battle.

Don