Soak off attacks, love or hate them and what to do?

[klanx171]

As mentioned soak off attacks happen in other board and war games and could be considered a battle tactic (distraction, attacking the weak point first) but if there is only one single tank which can be subjected to a range of enemy fire then its worth asking the question what was that tank doing there without support?

I recently fought battle where my opp tired to do attacks like that and because I had grouped tanks and infantry support any attempt to do that was countered by a hail of return fire, making it a situation to either commit to a full scale fight or keep hidden.

Of course in all situations its not always possible to have it like that but if single tanks can be subjected to soak off attacks then it may not always be a fault of the soaker but the other player, trying to correct it by making a setting or rule may not help if one player is leaving his tanks in such a position.

I do soaking and have been subjected to it but I try to avoid it in several ways...

a.) keeping units mutually supported so no one unit can be subjected to soak off fire because the other units will support it in returning fire.

b.) never leaving tanks exposed. In the older version of SP you could get away with it but in WaW exposed tanks are subject to more than they can dish out if all alone. So I either pull them back into cover after firing or make sure there is enough support out so that no one unit is exposed and has to take it all alone.

c.) screening by infantry or light vehicles. It can some time back fire when on the attack and speed is needed but in other situations it means that potential enemy can be baited into firing if their range isnt zeroed out. This works better as most players will zero their AT guns and even infantry but often leave their MGs set up as cover and these can be tricked into firing and setting off a firefight and exposing the hidden positions.

I often make use of HMGs to spray bullets around on enemy tanks to get them to button up and while it doesnt prevent snap shots it can often be enough to make the difference between a hit and miss if they do snap shot when my tanks pop up and in some cases they will fire away at the MGs and not.

I think soaking is legitimate and while its a sort of exploitable game mechanic the game is a simulation of RL and in RL such things occur (say if a lone tank sticks its head up) so I have no problem with it.