Assault question

[nhill40]

Anyone in the mood to answer a question from a noob?  :)

Mind you, I'm not completely new to operational wargaming, but I am a completely new to the Panzer Campaigns series.  I've been messing around with the free mobile PzC version and I've been able to figure out a lot by reading the manual and just doing a lot of trial & error with the various scenarios.

I doubt this is the only question that will come up for me, but one thing that has surprised me as it relates to assaults is that I can find any evidence/documentation that indicates any benefit from assaulting from multiple directions simultaneously.  I would assume that, all other things being equal, assaulting an enemy held hex from multiple directions would have some kind of advantage over assaulting from just a single hex.

If it is indeed the case that there is no advantage to be gained in assaulting from multiple directions at once, could someone please clue this noob in on why this would be modeled this way in the game?  Intuitively, it seems to me that my life as a defender would be much more difficult if I have to defend in multiple directions simultaneously.

[Compass Rose]

[Ocito80]

Welcome, and while I can't answer the question with any real authority behind what the game designers did, I can offer up some observations.

I think the scale of the game limits the necessity for such a mechanic as flanking bonuses. The operational aspect of the series is one of maneuver and fluid lines of combat. Flanking bonus is more of a strategic level mechanic where the front lines are more rigid, or defined.

Flanking at the strategic level is usually a simple concept, often having a division or corps size unit flanked on either side by two enemy units of similar size. In PzC this is less profound as the division breaks down into many smaller pieces, sometimes as high as 50 unique individual units making up one division. Therefore, flanking in PzC becomes one of actual maneuver rather than giving a combat bonus in a battle.

There are still combat advantages to have from flanking....ideally encircling units leads to them becoming "isolated" which is a mechanic that severely limits the effectiveness of a unit. "Disruption" of a unit is another mechanic one won't readily see in many wargames. A disrupted unit also suffers from disadvantages in combat. And then there are "broken" units which just want to run away :)

I hope that helps.

[nhill40]

Yes, that does help - thank you!

Based on your explanation, I can picture how flanking could be done on an operational level based on maneuver: if I am actively engaged with a group of enemy units along a north-south line but then was able to successfully maneuver an independent force to threaten the south end of the enemy's line, they enemy force would be forced to either thin out their north-south line to meet the new threat, or risk being rolled up from the south.

Something in my brain still inists some kind of "multi-directional assault" combat modifier should be applied, but this is more than likely a failure of abstract thinking on my part as something along these lines would have been obscenely easy to implement...and "corner cutting" is not a phrase anyone has ever associated with any of JT's games!

[Ricky B]

There are a lot of potential factors that the system doesn't represent. JT and team picked what they wanted to model in the early days, and attacks from multiple hexes wasn't one of them. In part, it may be due to the non-phased nature of movement and combat - a unit can be assaulted multiple times in a turn, so it would feel pretty gamey to benefit from assaulting with a single unit from each of 2 hexes opposite each other, when there are say 3 units in each hex that could assault. Anyway, just saying, that it just plain wasn't done. Since most action is by fire rather than assault it may not have been wanted, hard telling.

Rick

[Dion]

From my experience, you do have an advantage but it's not documented. A good way of looking at it is that you will probably have a numerical advantage, so you should cause more enemy casualties than usual and take less friendly casualties than usual. Plus having them out flanked, they will be boxed in, which should reduce their chance of a successful retreat and give you a better chance at finishing them off in later turns. Plus, if you got a modifier, it would give you an unrealistic advantage even if you were out numbered. Over all, I would say it's more realistic than a modifier - IMO.