Stratagies of War - Economy of Force

[Ratzki]

I agree with alot of what you are saying, but then again there are a couple points. I agree, you can't just "tickle " enemy infantry, you have to hit them hard, and try to be set up so that you can do this in one turn. Then you have to get out of the way, now, did I say now, I mean now. First reason for getting out is that the enemy will move something that he thinks will turn the tide in his favour into position to deal with the threat, and it will be done fast. You really want to avoid fighting the enemy, now I say shoot at them, and shoot at them as fast and with as much as you have in the local area that can have a good effect on the bad guys. Just do not let the enemy return fire and have a fight start; it is very hard to dissengage successfully. Your men will pin, response times for following orders go through the roof. Soon you will be in trouble. Now you do not have to move far away, just make the enemy have to locate you again, and try to keep the enemy heavy weapons out of LOS and the fight.
On the subject of making mistakes, I agree that you can not make someone make an error, but you can sure up the odds that he will do so. It is the ability to keep the initiative that will help you force out the mistakes. If you can keep the pressure on the enemy units and keep him reacting to your actions, he will be hard pressed not to over/under react somewhere, even a hesitation can be deadly. Now I am not saying this is an easy task. I struggle with it all the time. But defending is an active task not a passive one. I would rather attack in CM any day to defending in a battle, but I have had success and see to be doing better as time goes on and I start trying to force the attackers into certain actions. This is really all you have. If you sit, you die, simple as that.
I too don't go in for razzle dazzle, and if you play against one of our better players here, you will be in for one he!! of a fight no matter what. But that does not mean just sit back and let be what will be. I keep going back to the sports thing but when I was playing good hockey in my teens, my coach had played in the NHL for a few years in his past. I was chatting with him one day and what he said has stayed with me all this time. He said that there are all kinds of good players, but what seperates the good from the great is that "Great players do what should be done when it should be done, not when it has to be done, because by then it is too late." This is not razzle dazzle but playing the game, will you always be successful?... nope, but no action is worse then the wrong action. I think that you should play the game, and by that I mean that you should take an active part in the battle, just remember that sometimes sh!t happens.