Trench or Foxhole

[McIvan]

Mines & barbed wire....mmmmmm. Finished a 2k CMAK QB recently where the Germans were assaulting my positions....you only get about 800 points to spend on infantry but you can spend up to 800 on fortifications; I figured I was going to get hammered so decided to try something different. I'd never thoroughly wired in a position before, or really wired much at all, but the resulting battle....I'd left two chokepoints covered by indirect artillery, machineguns, and a single 105mm howitzer....was a real eye-opener as to what it must have been like. The US 155mm arty spotter caused over 100 casualties to the Germans, who died on the wire in droves.

The problem with wire in CMAK however is that you can't remove it with engineers or flatten it with tanks, and you should be able to. Very effective for its points cost....but you really need plenty of it to achieve much, which of course hurts you in other areas, in my case I had virtually no anti-tank defence and a single M8HMC in the vehicle category. Just buying a few bits of barbed wire gets you nowhere.

I'd choose barbed wire en masse over trenches en masse any day. But if you haven't got the points, I agree that HMG's in trenches seem to be very durable, but otherwise they're a bit easily visible (the trenches ) ....although the deception tactics noted are good stuff and will definitely give some of them a try, thanks :)

[Colonel Talvela]

I think wire is extremely useful. I always buy some wire. Mines, well I have never gotten much mileage out of them, and they have never slowed me down much, so I dont rate them very high. Of course I would love to be shown how to use them correctly, if that is possible.