Advancing over open ground

[Flibby]

With my thinking head on I can see that it would obviously be a bad idea to march in to no man's land without cover of fire or smoke.

My question is based around how difficult it is to pin the enemy sometimes. For reference I'm mainly playing the WW2 mod for AoTR. (Recommendations between modern wars and Spanish Civil War modules welcome...).

With the scenario time limits, does anyone else feel that they struggle to pin all enemy units which could hit an advance, which I assume simulates 'winning the firefight '?

Cheers

I cant speak for the mod, Mike will be able to offer more insight into that specifically. But speaking with regard to the un-modded series, and depending on the scenario being played, it is probably not realistic or necessary to expect to pin all units to prevent them from advancing.

Disrupting is probably good enough, that will slow them down a lot and make them much less effective, and thats probably the best you can expect if the enemy are intent on getting into your lines. Disrupted status has a big effect on units so whilst pinning is often seen as the gold standard in fact, by disrupting a unit you are actually having a pretty big impact on their ability to fight. I think a lot of new players dont realise what a big difference disruption actually makes. it has the same effect on fire power as pinning a unit (a 50% reduction) and it reduces their movement allowance as well. So, dont be fooled by the significance of that big yellow "P". Disrupting is often good enough. Pinning, becomes more significant when you are preparing to do a close assault you shouldnt even attempt an assault without that but otherwise? pinning is nice, but not essential.

I dont know if this applies to your specific situation but I wonder if you are firing at more than 50% max range? if so then  you are going to be penalising yourself by a  hefty 50% reduction in your fire power. You arent going to pin much with that and will be much less likely to disrupt units as well! Mikes mod wont have changed that value, its hard coded into the game its not a moddable property. Hope that helps.

I used an algorithm for deciding which game to get next, I'll let you use it, its in the public domain,  free to use, no copyright:

1. Which game interests you most? 
   
2. get that one.
   
3. both games interest you equally?
   
4. get both of them.
   

Do that and you wont be disappointed.

Thanks for the detailed response.

The battle I'm playing in particular and struggling with is the Battle of Warta. Maybe this was created for sadists but there are strong polish positions overlooking a central forested route and two open flanks covered by MGs and mortars.

It's a choice between a slow advance through the forest with no support once I get through the forest on whatever meets me, or a quick advance in the open when even disrupted or pinned troops can pin my guys.

Perhaps I need to improve the leaders keeping up with the advancing troops and accepting that I will sometimes get bogged down. This might be a better solution than slowly groping through a forest with no support fire?

I will post some pictures up later