Stratagies of War - Economy of Force

[JasonC]

Straw man. Nobody is talking about feet in cement sitting there doing nothing.

Starting infantry fights that you don't mean to turn into fights and finish is a waste of time. If you get caught trying to pull it, you lose a platoon sized ambush force for nothing. If you succeed, you messed up one squad for 3 minutes and they just rally. And you spent a minute of ammo from a full platoon to do it. That will never compound to victory.

The only time ambush and fall back like that makes any sense is when it is merely whacking one very weak scout, like a half squad, that is way in front of support and therefore vulnerable. And the gain from it isn't attrition, because there isn't any - your ammo loss is as big a deal as his manpower loss. It just denies enemy intel for a little bit.

Which is tactical minutae and not how to win the CM war of attrition.

Again, the only way to inflict lopsided causalties in meaningful amounts are the match ups I detailed. Infantry in full position strength firing at point blank against already cowering men, or men in the open at 100 yards while you are in cover - and kept up enough to actually smash to heck the enemy formation. Which in practice means about 4 minutes and half the ammo "wind" of the guys doing it. For infantry, that's it. For AT, lopsided kills come down to enemy blunders, a thicker front plate, platoon vs. lone vehicle, or hidden AT gun ambush (including infantry AT teams at very close range). That's it.

These aren't maneuver-ee affairs. They are simply "right match up" affairs, in the combined arms sense. And most turn on a full position cutting loose - kill sack stuff, not plink and run...