Defense vs Offense

[Dog Soldier]

Well I guess everyone's experience is different in the games in this series. Andrew seems to have the direct opposite experience than what I have seen in the Salerno and Anzio scenarios of S43. My experience was the well dug in Allied positions behind wire and mines backed by artillery slaughtered the Germans by the boat load. In the scenario depicting the last German push to crack the Anzio perimeter, the Germans are barely able to penetrate the front line Allied positions.

Cap Cav's comments about 3:1 superiority resulting in an overrun of a defensive position just doesn't seem to fit with my experiences. To have the proper defensive attributes Andrew and Cap Cav are talking about, I assume they are referring to undisrupted defending units.
It is not common in my experience that undisrupted defenders are routed from their positions by a mere 3:1 odds assault. Not without a huge morale / BF difference.

Disrupted defenders, by definition, have a reduction in fire control, leadership, and in general a lessened ability to mount co-ordinated fire to repel an assault. Fortifications in the hex do not matter once the defender is disrupted, (read that as pinned if you like) and unable to mount enough firepower to stop an assault.

So if you think it is too easy to assault undisrupted defenders, I would have to say in my humble experience that is not the case. Large numerical superiority is required against an undisrupted defender. By numerical superiority, I mean assault to defense values. In K42, it takes two full regiments of a Russian infantry division to cause a favorable result against a single German company in a bunker that is not disrupted. Even then, the outcome is not certain and several of such assaults are required to reduce the German position. This general experience seems to hold in other games in the series. (see R42 for example)

Andrew's comment on maneuver...
" In fact I would argue that as things currently stand you don't actually need to manouvre that much."
What maneuver is at this scale is different to each player. Operational maneuver is getting more units lined up against a smaller or weaker defense in a hex or two. I think Sgt Barker in this thread referred to that as local superiority.

Then there is tactical maneuvers, which is pretty much simulated in your head at this scale. I consider when attacking, moving into a position where the defender receives fire from opposite sides of the hex, "minimal surrounded" is a a sign of good maneuvering at this scale. Such an attack splits and confuses the defender's fire resulting in a defending position to become untenable. Attacking from only two adjacent hexes is the same, IMHO, as a frontal assault. And this is not likely to work at only 3:1 superiority against an undisrupted and organized defense.

Finally, I would like to address the issue of defensive fire. The AI is not a great defensive fire program. There is another thread here that does point out well that the manual defensive fire optional rule does make for a very different game due to the phased approach. I would submit that in my turn as the strategic defender in a scenario, careful choices of which units fire in my turn, is also "defensive fire". When you see the "attackers" weak return fire, controlled now by the AI, I would contend there is no need to enhance the current defensive fire.
True, some units do not fire in my opponents turn, no matter how much I yell at the screen "SHOOT THEM!". This is esp. true of Russian and French units that seem to think is not correct to shoot back unless they are first disrupted. So polite of them.
It is really satisfactory when the attacker does get a disruption from my defensive fire on some of his units. I try to give such enemy units extra attention and work them over even more in my turn if possible so they do not easily rally and return to the fight after my defensive turn.

end :soap:

Dog Soldier