Stratagies of War - Economy of Force

[Ratzki]

“In the utilization of a theatre of war, as in everything else, strategy calls for economy of strength. The less one can manage with, the better; but manage one must, and here, as in commerce, there is more to it than mere stinginess.”

Carl von Clausewitz
1780-1831

I thought that I would kick off the defensive strategies with a little quote from Clausewitz. What he says rings so true in Combat Mission. When you start a quick battle, both you and your enemy know that the player on the defensive side will have fewer points to spend on his forces then will the attacking player. If you have set up any other parameters, there too, the attacker will know just how and where your forces will be limited. Set-up zones, flag position, battle maps with an edge are just some of the facts that we have to deal with during play. On defence, we must be able to overcome these and other limitations so that we might be victorious. “The Perfect Economy Strategy” might just be the most important strategy we must master in order to be successful playing Combat Mission.
What is the perfect economy?... in short, it is managing your forces in order to get the most effect while using the fewest resources. Skills will only take us so far, we teeter with disaster by trying to surpass our limits. Seduced by the flags of victory, we overextend our forces, and our electronic soldiers end up spent, exhausted and vulnerable to enemy actions. You must know your forces limits, pick your fights carefully, consider the total cost of taking the flag or controlling that building. Do you have enough time, how about ammunition, can you afford to lose those men in order to gain or keep the objective. Everything must be considered before you start shooting. Is it better to wait for several turns or push for a head on counterattack, either way, you have to aim for your enemies weaknesses. Everything that you do on the battlefield has a cost, be it in time, ammunition, and of course casualties. Make the battle expensive for your opponent and cheap for you, this is fighting with “perfect economy”.
In 281 BC a war broke out between Rome and the city of Tarentum. The city, not known for it's military, hired King Pyrrhus to fight for them. Pyrrhus had a great reputation, he claimed to be directly descended from Achilles and was a cousin of Alexander the Great. King Pyrrhus crossed into Italy with what was the largest Greek army ever to do so, he had 20,000 foot soldiers, 3,000 cavalry, 2,000 bowmen and 20 war elephants. This army met the Romans near Heraclea, Pyrrhus was outnumbered and at one point in the battle, near defeat. Only the war elephants were able, at the last moment to turn the tide and send the Roman army into chaos. It was a great victory, but King Pyrrhus worried about his battle loses. Many veteran officers and soldiers had been killed, but the king pressed on and Rome responded by sending another army to meet Pyrrhus' forces. Next to the town of Asculum the foes met for the second time. Pyrrhus pulled out all the stops and after personally leading a violent charge managed to again defeat the Roman army. But the king's loses had been terrible, the ranks were decimated, and he too, was wounded from the fighting. When asked about his great victories, King Pyrrhus commented “If we defeat the Romans in one more such battle, we shall be totally ruined.” Truth be told, the king was already ruined. His remaining forces were too few and his Italian campaign was over.
From the battle at Asculum comes the term “Pyrrhic victory”. How often do you find yourself in the same condition as King Pyrrhus during a CM battle? You are able to push the enemy back, take or keep the objective, but with your ranks decimated, you are unable to hold on. Eventually, you yield the ground and flags to the enemy. If everyone was polled, how often do you think that players would report this happens?... I bet it is more often then we all imagine it could be. How do we let ourselves get into this position time and time again?... Is it the excitement of the prospects of gaining victory, do we only see what we want to see, ignore the difficulties and focus on only the gains. The farther that we go, the harder it is to step back and rationally reassess the situation. Everything seems well at first, but our costs mount and quickly spiral out of control, more poor choices lead to more mistakes, which lead to new and unforeseen problems, which in turn lead to more costs. Soon, any victories that we manage along the way become meaningless.
The more that you want the prize, the more you must examine what it will take to get it. This is where we can apply the “perfect economy” to our CM battle. As the defender, you will be tasked with preventing the enemy from gaining control of the victory flags, limiting your losses, and maximizing enemy losses. We have several weapons at our disposal to accomplish this task. Every weapon, every squad, every vehicle has a value. There is no such thing as a useless unit and combinations of different units can become very potent weapons when used together. Every force has a weak point, an Achilles heal, and every force has a strength somewhere, something that can be built on and if used effectively can contribute to your defence. The trick is to find the strengths of your force and place them where they can be of the most use. Usually, as the defender, going at the enemy toe to toe, strength against strength is not the path to victory. You may well score devastating blows on your enemies forces, but usually the devastation will have spread to your forces as well. With the differences in attacking and defending forces costs, you will often come out on the losing end as the attacker possesses more resources and can trade blow for blow and still win the battle. We must find a way to even the score up somewhat before the battle begins.
A good way to start is by quickly determining what units the enemy has brought to the battle. Usually the attacking player has a fair bit of ground to cover before he can threaten your defences, use this time to hold off exposing your positions by shooting at extreme ranges and make careful note as to what types and numbers of men and equipment is moving your way. Assess the enemy's strengths and expose his weaknesses by attacking his weakest units with your strongest. Avoid fighting outnumbered or outgunned, it is you that must always outnumber and outgun the enemy. Doing so should cost the enemy more then it does you, and if this can be repeated over and over again, victory will be yours.
Every battle is a balance between ends and means, you can have a great plan to achieve a certain end, but unless you have the means to accomplish it, the plan is totally worthless.

“Every limitation has its value, but a limitation that requires persistent effort entails a cost of too much energy. When, however, the limitation is a natural one (as for example, the limitation by which water flows only downhill), it necessarily leads to success, for then it means a saving of energy. The energy that otherwise would be consumed in a vain struggle with the object is applied wholly to the benefit to the matter in hand, and success is assured.”

The I Ching
China, circa eighth century B.C.

We must avoid coming up with a plan on paper, and instead look deeply into what tools you have. These tools consist of the units you have, weather, terrain, number of game turns, ect. Think of the skills that you have, the quality of your troops, the knowledge of your opponent from past battles, how creatively you can use all your means at your disposal. Then, out of this let your plans form.
“Perfect economy” means finding a golden balance, where your blows count but do not wear you out. Over economizing will wear you out more as you will never be able to deliver the knock out punch. CM is like any sport, you must not let the other player/team stay in the game, giving them hope that allows them to carry on with the battle. This way they always think that they are just one move away from changing the battle in their favour. If they are allowed to proceed this way, they often will find a way to accomplish their goals. We must put them out of the game as soon as we get the chance to. Hit them hard so that their force is unable to continue, or that the enemy is convinced that they have no chances here on this part of the map.
There are three ways to help us economize during a battle and yet still deliver the big blows that will get the win. First, deception. Most often, attacking players are ready to meet a static defence, what happens when they see a force moving around? Are you coming at them, should they hold off for a few turns to gather more information about your intentions? Should they divert some of their attacking forces in order to deal with what they perceive to be a threat? The questions and actions are unlimited. Even if no shots are fired by either side, you can usually shed a couple turns off the game's length while they reorganize, and in this way add a cost to the enemy in reduced available turns. You might be able to take part of the enemy force out of the action entirely and never fire a shot as he will have to provide flank protection for his units against a perceived threat. If a unit does not fire or take part in a battle it is as good as dead.
Second, look for opponents that you can beat. Don't fight fair, outnumber and outgun the enemy forces. If you question the effects that this can have, start the editor and place one squad from each side in scattered trees at 100m apart and let them go head to head for several turns and count the losses. Then add a field gun to one side and run the same number of turns, again check the losses for each side. Add another squad to this side, maybe a light mortar and so on each time recording the losses by both sides. You will find that the enemy losses go up exponentially and yours will decrease. You will also notice that the time it takes to start causing significant losses to the enemy will decrease as well. This is another economizing tactic in that you save ammunition and of course casualties not taken are a direct saving.
Third, we have to know when to stop. Pyrrhus did not know when to stop, we must avoid doing the same. I think players, including myself like to use hit and run tactics often, the problem is we forget the run part. Our hidden units bloody the enemy, we stay in position, forgetting or choosing not to run, the next thing we know, the attacker has adjusted to the threat and brings forces quickly to the area, decimates what units we have there and moves on. We turn a victory in this part of the map into a loss by figuring that we can soldier on, when we should have gotten our guys the heck outta there and taken up new positions that the attacker must again locate and deal with.
I said that I would try to mention players here that I have faced that are good examples of what I am writing about. I know that there are several out there that are good at this, but one that comes to mind is herroburst. My battles with him have been very entertaining, I should play him more often. He seems to have the ability to put together small battle-groups that compliment each other to the fullest. His forces are just the right blend to have just enough to push through defences and hold off a stiff counterattack. Tanks are supported by infantry, infantry protect the tanks and fringe units are used to their maximum effectiveness. I would say that this is what perfect economy looks like, nothing is wasted and everything is used to it's best effects. Considering that he usually has about a thousand games on the go at any one time, this is quite a skill, I would hate to be his opponents if he ever decided to play just two or three games at a time.
I think this starts to cover the “perfect economy” strategy in CM, when I get around to it again, I will present the next strategy, “The Counterattack”. I again look forward to what everyone has to say, I am trying to keep the length down and just hit some of the high points on each of the topics, volumes could be written.