My units keep getting disrupted

[Admiral Hood]

I am playing East Prussia '14 by John Tiller as the Russians and when I am attacking, my units are getting slaughtered by the enemy Machine Guns that seem to be immune for my artillery fire. When I am in a hex adjace to the enemy with 3 or 2 infantry units against the enemy's one and his one MG I am losing about 100-200 men in one turn and have all my units disrupted, unable to assault and utuilize their superiority. Soon it seems that I am unable to defeat a weaker foe because he has MGs.

Could your provide me with some tips on how to attack the enemy?

Let me tell you how I'm doing it now:

1. I am trying to disrupt him with my artillery and MGs - I am concentrating on the points of my main attack, though also devoting some minor fire to the other areas to confuse my opponent. This works rather well, and quite some enemy units are disrupted.
2. I am moving my infantry closer to the enemy, 2 or 3 units in one hex just prior to the assault, so no more than 2 units in one hex when closing in under artillery and MG fire - still, I am losing about 100 men in each hex. I am trying to keep my brigade HQ 2 hexes or one hex away.
3. I am assaulting disrupted enemy units with 2-3 of my own units if possible - which is usually not possible as they are all disrupted.
4. Even if I am breaking through in one place, my men are too disrupted to prevent enemy's regrouping and cannot really use the breakthrough to totally disrupt enemy forces. 
5. After my breakthrough in two hexes I have 3 disrupted units in each of them, while the enemy has prety weak units - retreated units - one per each hex, and artillery in one of those. During the German turn it has fired three times - killing 60 Russian each time, and when I tried to shoot back during my turn, it was killing 60 per turn again while I did almost nothing.

To clarify - I am playing the main campaign and the battle of Gumbinnen was half-hearted and I've retreated after high losses and enemy retreated too. Now I am attacking his forces near Gumbinnen and I Reservekorps at the same position it has occupied in the beginning. I am doing poorly in both, particularly where the enemy MGs and artillery are as I can't even get close without my men being disrupted and they don't seem to be recovering from disruption either.

What am I doing wrong?


PS - does the amount of troops in one hex affect moving speed? Many of my columns don't move faster than 2 hexes in one turn.


Also - why in attack when assault chances are 3700 to about 700 I am losing 48 men while the enemy is losing 29 men and 3 guns? He only has artillery, MGs and cavalry unit in that hex. Hex is clear with no advantages. I am attacking with 2 regular Russian units. What gives?

[lerugray]

I am playing East Prussia '14 by John Tiller as the Russians and when I am attacking, my units are getting slaughtered by the enemy Machine Guns that seem to be immune for my artillery fire. When I am in a hex adjace to the enemy with 3 or 2 infantry units against the enemy's one and his one MG I am losing about 100-200 men in one turn and have all my units disrupted, unable to assault and utuilize their superiority. Soon it seems that I am unable to defeat a weaker foe because he has MGs.

Could your provide me with some tips on how to attack the enemy?

Let me tell you how I'm doing it now:

1. I am trying to disrupt him with my artillery and MGs - I am concentrating on the points of my main attack, though also devoting some minor fire to the other areas to confuse my opponent. This works rather well, and quite some enemy units are disrupted.
2. I am moving my infantry closer to the enemy, 2 or 3 units in one hex just prior to the assault, so no more than 2 units in one hex when closing in under artillery and MG fire - still, I am losing about 100 men in each hex. I am trying to keep my brigade HQ 2 hexes or one hex away.
3. I am assaulting disrupted enemy units with 2-3 of my own units if possible - which is usually not possible as they are all disrupted.
4. Even if I am breaking through in one place, my men are too disrupted to prevent enemy's regrouping and cannot really use the breakthrough to totally disrupt enemy forces. 
5. After my breakthrough in two hexes I have 3 disrupted units in each of them, while the enemy has prety weak units - retreated units - one per each hex, and artillery in one of those. During the German turn it has fired three times - killing 60 Russian each time, and when I tried to shoot back during my turn, it was killing 60 per turn again while I did almost nothing.

To clarify - I am playing the main campaign and the battle of Gumbinnen was half-hearted and I've retreated after high losses and enemy retreated too. Now I am attacking his forces near Gumbinnen and I Reservekorps at the same position it has occupied in the beginning. I am doing poorly in both, particularly where the enemy MGs and artillery are as I can't even get close without my men being disrupted and they don't seem to be recovering from disruption either.

What am I doing wrong?


PS - does the amount of troops in one hex affect moving speed? Many of my columns don't move faster than 2 hexes in one turn.


Also - why in attack when assault chances are 3700 to about 700 I am losing 48 men while the enemy is losing 29 men and 3 guns? He only has artillery, MGs and cavalry unit in that hex. Hex is clear with no advantages. I am attacking with 2 regular Russian units. What gives?

Where are your HQ's? With the Russians you pretty much need to keep the HQ's adjacent to where you dont want units to disrupt, if you look at most of the command ranges I believe they are only one hex. Otherwise the Russian forces are extremely brittle. You need an HQ close to wherever you are firing or assaulting, preferably 1 hex away I think. Pretty sure all of this has to do with HQ's not being close enough.

Also yes the amount of troops in one hex will affect MP expenditure, use alt click and units will move in column 1 by 1 automatically.

Once you get your feet wet with the game let me know if you'd like a game. The Germans are much easier to play as their HQ's have ranges.

[Admiral Hood]

I am trying to keep HQs in the adjacent hex but with huge enemy MG and artillery fire there is little I can do - they shatter my men - I can lose up to 200 due to them in one hex in one turn. My units will become broken after 2-3 turns.

Please, analyze my attack such as I've described it and tell me what i am doing wrong.

[lerugray]

I am trying to keep HQs in the adjacent hex but with huge enemy MG and artillery fire there is little I can do - they shatter my men - I can lose up to 200 due to them in one hex in one turn. My units will become broken after 2-3 turns.

Please, analyze my attack such as I've described it and tell me what i am doing wrong.

It would be a little easier to analyze with some images but from what I can gleam, you dont need to move your infantry units adjacent until the enemy is disrupted, and sometimes you may want to have more than 2 battalions in a hex. Don't always assault disrupted units, try to rout or break them further with more firepower. Use reserves to cover breakthroughs, dig in asap, and keep an HQ 1 hex away at all times.

sorry i must have just sped read through that the first time, popped up on my facebook feed and I only play F14 & EP 14 (and FWW and some napoleonics )

Edit: You will also want to use your cavalry units for breakthroughs, they are some of your better units.

[Ricky B]

Suggestions, where possible:

Only move a single battalion per hex adjacent - higher stacking=higher losses and chance of disruption. But if you can move up in 3 adjacent hexes, you have a better chance of not having all units disrupt.
Keep a couple of units 1 hex away to move up and assault.
If unable to move and assault due to movement costs, then you have to push more units up next to the enemy and then hope for rallies if everything disrupts.
Attack around the German MGs and Artillery. You don't have to attack head on, there is plenty of open space/flanks or parts of the line without having to attack right next to the MGs.

And remember, this is WW1 and even early on the defenders could cause heavy losses to the attacker, and stop attacks.

Rick

[Volcano Man]

Yeah, you also don't need to disrupt the MG or field gun units themselves - just disrupt the infantry battalion with it, and assault. When you do this, the losses in men will almost entirely come from the enemy MG unit as they attempt to hold down the hex.

[Mr Grumpy]

I think the basic rule is if possible to be patient when attacking with the Russians and wear down your opponents units over a number of turns, move MG and Field gun units to within two hex's and fire at the target hex over a number of turns, if you can use a higher elevation to fire "over their heads" that is even better, obviously if you can add arty hits to the attack that will be a bonus.

Sacrifice one battalion to move adjacent to the target hex to add to the fire, never have more than one battalion adjacent until the moment of the assault as this will incur heavy losses/fatigue, hopefully in the end (might take one turn or multiple turns) you should disrupt the infantry unit accompanying the MG unit, then you can soak up some of the defensive fire with your MG/FG units and then using a stack that you have kept hidden behind the "sacrifice" battalion assault the hex.

Obviously luck plays a role here and sometimes the MG unit will deliver defensive fire and sometimes not, if the units in your stack are disrupted don't leave them adjacent but move them back out of LOS if possible to avoid heavy losses and fatigue.

Remember not to wait for your opponents MG/FG units to disrupt as this rarely happens, as long as the accompanying infantry is disrupted you are good to go.

Unfortunately the process requires practise and knowing just when to assault is a black art in itself and even if all goes well the "die roll" might go against you and you don't take the hex.

The strength of the Russians is their numbers and generally you can wear the CP forces down over a number of turns introducing fresh troops to the attack, the CP player cannot have FG/MG units everywhere so try to attack in places where they are not located, but patience is the key which does not come naturally to me so I also went through the same learning curve when I started with the FWWC series, I remember my frustration back then and Ed (Volcano Man) giving me very similar advice to what I am doing for you now!