Trench or Foxhole

[KampfgruppeAdam]

Which of the above provides the best cover.

And does the fact the trenches / foxholes are behind and wall / sandbags make a difference.

[Mike Abberton]

I have been finding lately that foxholes are more trouble than they are worth. They seem to provide very little cover from direct HE fire, although they do seem to help quite a bit from rifle/mg fire.

My biggest problem with them is that they increase the visibility of your troops quite a bit. You can spot the foxholes a lot sooner than you can spot the troops in them, particularly after they fire once. Next turn, your opponent can sight some HE fire on the foxhole and move/pin the troops pretty easy. For ambush troops (flamethrowers, panzershreck/bazooka, tank hunters, etc.) I'll often intentionally not place them in a foxhole.

Some times when this doesn't hurt as bad are foxholes deep in the woods where they are not likely to take direct HE fire. Also, if you have a bunch of "fall back" foxholes you can place, you can also sprinkle the area with dummy holes in the front line and only man 1/3 of them. That way it makes area targeting individual foxholes less effective.

Trenches are even easier to spot, obviously, but they provide an excellent amount of cover, even to direct HE fire (especially the small stuff - 75mm and smaller). Repeated direct 105s and 155s will pin and eventually rout the troops in the trench, but doing so sucks up an awful lot of precious heavy caliber ammo. Troops in trenches need to be dug out with lots of HE and/or MG suppression and close infantry assaults.

Not sure how much better trenches behind sandbags/walls would be, but I expect that foxholes would benefit from a stone wall/sandbags in front of them. It should reduce the direct HE fire threat some.


Hope that helps.
Mike

[Copper]

Anything behind a wall wil get a defensive bonus of some king. I prefer Foxholes to Trenches, but if a Trench is all you have its better than sitting in the open. The thing I hate about the Trench is that it does not seem to provide that much cover and is all too easy to spot.

My opinion though.

[Mike Abberton]

Geordie does have a point that trenches are very visible. If you place a line of them in an open field, they will attract a lot of attention. I don't usually pack my trenches to the gills with troops for that reason. One or two units per section is about all, and a good ratio is 3 per 2 sections. They work better if you can give them just enough clear area in front to set up a nice fire zone, but not so much clear area that every tank/gun on the map can fire at the troops in them.

Hiding the troops in the trench with a fire arc when something comes in range seems to work best for me. Keeps HE and arty losses down, and he has to get troops close to ID your infantry.

One note on trenches that Bluehand confirmed in a recent game of ours, CM does not seem to model adjacent trenches as connected. So there is little to no benefit from attacking "down the trench", at least not from one segment to the next.

[Copper]

A top tip of mine is if you get trenches and also can do foxholes, put your guys in foxholes about 20-30M behind the trench. Trench takes all the heat and is empty and when your enemy attacks and expends his ammo on them you can either kill him as he comes in or counterattack to the trench line. Sneaky but often effective and your guys advance to known cover.

[Copper]

When using foxholes, I like to position them behind buildings out of sight and do a little sabre rattling with the unit in the building out front to attract enemy fire, sneak out, hide in the hole while your OPP makes rubble of the building, sneak back in under the smoke and dust cover and hide with a 50 meter arc

Also it's good to use your foxholes as a detterant, simply position them in a defensive area with the units hiding nearby. The OPP will usually waste a few rounds of HE and a few turns getting into position to attack them whilst you bid your time and plan your ambushes on his assaulting units.

[Der Kuenstler]

Trenches will give you the best cover in the game - only 9% exposure. The only thing better is to be ducking behind a stone wall which will give you 0% exposure. Foxholes and craters give you 44% exposure - it's actually better to be in a light building or scattered trees than in a foxhole in the open. Panther Bait is right - they draw too much attention - I usually use empty ones (laid out like a platoon is there.) to draw artillery.

[KampfgruppeAdam]

Top Tips Lads should help me in the first round of the longest day tournament.

[Colonel Talvela]

Trenches have the best cover in the game. To me the spotting is a minor issue compared to the benefits. They are especially good with HMGs.

Perhaps my favorite thing about trenches is that I like to use them as a way of moving units through open ground. Put each end of the trench in brush/scattered trees, and you can sneak through the trench to get to the next cover.


And one more little tip. If you have men in a foxhole that you plan on retreating from, you should move them to the edge of the foxhole before contact is made. Movement through a foxhole is very slow, so when you do your retreat, it will be quite a bit faster to start running from the edge.

[Copper]

Give me mines over a stinky old trench any day. I thank goodness that the majority of my opponents who play defense QB's against me have not figured out how to use them effectively, especially in combination with wire.

Trenches = pppphhhhtttt.

Cheers!

Leto