From: Barclay, Tom <tomb@b...>
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 11:13:22 -0500
Subject: Frits AAR
Q: How do you deal with a one on one squad confrontation across an obstacle (river in this case) with both sides in cover. A: Tough. Both you and your opponent have good cover. The obstacle slow movement and can become a killing zone if you try to cross it to close assault. Plus you give the defender a free shot if you are even a little slow in the crossing. Solutions: 1) artillery. 2) Split your SAW from the rest of your team in the hopes of generating more suppressions to allow a CA. 3) Withdraw to attempt to draw the enemy or to allow you the liberty of choosing another attack angle that does not involve river crossing (cross downstream and move to engage). 4) The best: Get another squad in to help you suppress and damage the target squad. It takes a lot of FP in heavy jungle cover, esp if target goes IP. Q: How much terrain? A: Depends on the game. Infantry games benefit from cover. For interest, I try to keep cover no closer than 4" apart, and no further than about 9". This gives places for infantry to "bound". If you leave some open space, it gives vehicles a place to operate, and for long range weapon fire. Q: Artillery? A: Some light mortars, once and a while a battery of light or medium arty (3 gun). Not often, and usually only in assault or defence of fixed strongpoints. If your troops have D8 partial-hardshell (like I rate my FSE and OUDF) and then get IP or in some cover, then arty isn't that bad to deal with. If they are in D4 fatigues in the open, they get ripped apart. Keep up the good work. Try some of the scenarios from the back of the book, they are reasonably well balanced and don't have huge amounts of arty involved. Plus, don't underrate the quality shift of being veterans.... means you miss fewer comms/transfer rolls, you survive morale better AND you shoot better and further. That's a big step. Quality IS stargrunt. Also, keep in mind that a defence of superior terrain should not be assaulted with less than 1.5:1 odds (in wargaming) but in real life that'd be 3:1 or more. Static defenses can be very grim to assault - defender has cover and fire initiative, you have to move through the open. If you used any overwatch or reaction fire, its even tougher to assault. Figure in mines/CDMs, artillery registered in defence, emplaced heavy weapons, and you can really need a rather revolting amount of effort to dig out the target. Oft times, these emplaced forces are bypassed.