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thatbastardken posted:Secondary map for infantry brigadiers to consider: Areas of Responsibility! This is a Good Post
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Mar 9, 2017 05:03
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Do we want the wire at the edge of the forest or about an inch away from the edge of the ford? Our defenders will need to be at the edge of the forest to shoot out, and I think they would appreciate if the Germans are really tangled up trying to push across the ford. Consider the scenario: A German brigade approaches the ford. Our boys are shooting at them from cover, preferably from a trench as well. They need to stagger across single file, and then are immediately stopped by the wire, backing up the entire brigade. They will be in each other's way, while our lads will have an extra turn to happily shoot at them. This maximizes the confusion while minimizing the wire usage. Like so.
sullat fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Mar 9, 2017 |
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Mar 9, 2017 05:10
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 Major-General Desmond de Vere Barrington, GCVO, DSO and Bar. General Officer Commanding 3rd Cavalry Division, British Expeditionary Force. Gentlemen, here is our order of battle. As you can see, we have some of the finest regiments in the British Army. Our traditions go back to Waterloo and the long shadows of our ancestors lie over us in this moment. Let's make them proud. Arriving Turn 0: Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) Armoured Car Section: Commander sixkiller, RNVR Arriving Turn 4: 6th Cavalry Brigade: Brigadier General xthetenth -1st (Royal) Dragoons -10th (Prince of Wales's Own Royal) Hussars -3rd (Prince of Wales's) Dragoon Guards -C Battery RAH -Mounted Troop, Royal Engineers -- Lieutenant Colonel Hunt11, RE Total Strength: Brigade HQ, 10 cavalry companies, 2 horse artillery batteries, 1 mounted MG company, 2 mounted engineer companies. Arriving Turn 10: 7th Cavalry Brigade: Brigadier General mydad -1st Life Guards -2nd Life Guards, -Royal Horse Guards -K Battery RAH Total Strength: Brigade HQ, 10 cavalry companies, 2 horse artillery batteries, 1 mounted MG company All officers, here is the situation. German forces have broken through the Belgian lines and are headed right for the town of Effyaders. If Effyaders fall, the Channel ports fall. If the Channel ports fall, the BEF falls. if the BEF falls, France falls. And if France falls, Britian falls. The fate of the world lies on our shoulders at this moment. The 7th Infantry Division will be bringing its three brigades and artillery onto the field 36 hours from now. We must hold until then. I expect to face a German cavalry division+ on the first day, probably supported by horse artillery, bicycle troops and crack light infantry. We may see some German infantry on Day 1. We will face at least a division+ of infantry, with indirect fire on Day 2.  Here is our mission. Pevent the German from taking Effyaders. Hold as much ground on the right bank of the Effyaders Canal as possible. Our objective: Germans from crossing Zone 4 in force, Make this line will be our front line at the end of the battle. If we cannot accomplish that, we will fall back to Zone 5 and seek to hold that as our secondary objective. Loel posted:
Here is how we will execute our plan. Our overall plan is simple. Armoured Cars rush forwards to the Chemins to delay the enemy for as long as possible, then retreat back to hold the M4 and M7 fords. One brigade in the north in Effyaders. One in the south near Bois De Blob. Engineers creating obstructions to hinder enemy movements. My intent for all commanders is simple: delay, disrupt, distract. You must confuse and harry the Germans as much as possible. What we lack in strength, we must make up for in guile. Ambush them with rifles or sabres as you see fit. Use cover and concealment. Use chokepoints to cancel out their numbers. Bloody well slow the Hun down until our infantry can get there. When night falls, we must be wary of German night attacks or flanking moves. Here are your orders.  All commanders - I want conditionals that account for the best case, worst-case, and most likely enemy scenarios. Make sure you have a plan to fall back to our marked last-stand locations. Here are timetables to help guide your planning. professor_curly posted:Timetables Scout aircraft, fly over the suggested spot at Turn 12. Please center your recon on the eastern edge of Ferme Chatte so that the recon plane can see both of the Le Dand bridges. RNAS Armoured Car Section (Sixkiller), send 7-8 of your cars into the 6 o'clock segment of the Chemins to engage German cavalry approaching Stethoscope. Consider sending some cars into the shoulder of the road, using oblique formations, etc. to maximize your frontal firepower, although keep in mind the movement penalties you face when going off-road (if you go 1" off-road, you will only have 16" of move points left if you get back on the road). Have these cars fall back after a 2-4 turns (although if you are in a favorable fighting situation, you may issue conditionals to stay longer) and then have them set up to hold the M7 and M4 fords. Use the bottlenecks at fords to prevent enemy forces from charging your forces. Delay them as long as possible until cavalry brigades can arrive to support you. If overwhelmed by enemy forces, break contact and find suitable ambush positions, or fallback to the Zone 5 last stand site. Have your remaining cars acts as scouts covering the M4 and M1 fords. Do not let them get destroyed. 6th Brigade (xthetenth), you'll enter the map on Turn 4. Your orders are to move to the Foret De Effyaders to secure the M1, M2, and M3 fords. You may also need to change plans to hold the East-West road and secure the M4 fords should the enemy attempt to cross there in force. Your mission is to prevent the German from taking the Foret de Efffyaders. If you face overwhelming enemy forces that you cannot delay or destroy, alert division HQ and fall back to the Zone 5 last stand area. 7th Brigade (mydad), you'll enter the map on Turn 10. You will have two roles: mobile reserve and southern covering force. Head to the Bois de Blob area to counter German crossing efforts From M4 to M7. If 6th Brigade takes heavy pressure, be prepared to assist them directly or indirectly. Royal Engineers (Hunt11), Keeping mind timetables (your movement time, German movement time, build time), block the M7 and M6 fords with wire or a roadblock. Make sure you do not trap the armored cars on the eastern bank. I also want some wire or roadblocks on the East-West Road. If safe, continue wiring or roadblock the rest of the ford. If not, put wire on our flanks in the zone 5 area and begin digging trenches in zone 5 to stiffen our fallback positions there. here is a map with zones suggested sites to wire/block. If you have other ideas, let me see them and we can work out a more detailed plan.  Bacarruda fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Mar 10, 2017 |
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Mar 9, 2017 05:11
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can our troops advance through our own wire? I think this got answered once before, but do not recall.
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Mar 9, 2017 05:14
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thatbastardken posted:can our troops advance through our own wire? I think this got answered once before, but do not recall. In the real world, yes, we place paths and guides to lead units through the wire. I dont know if this is noted in game mechanics.
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Mar 9, 2017 05:15
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thatbastardken posted:can our troops advance through our own wire? I think this got answered once before, but do not recall. Yes, they know where the pre-planned safe routes are. quote:Companies may always pass through their own barbed wire without penalty. A company that comes into contact with enemy barbed wire stops and loses its movement. It then takes the whole of the next turn to cross to the other side of the wire, and then proceeds on the turn after that. During the middle turn of its movement through the wire, it may not charge nor use rifle fire
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Mar 9, 2017 05:15
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I must formally protest dividing our forces like this. Let the ACs take up positions near Stethoscope, let the first cav come in to support them, and only then send my cavalry the long way around to the North. We should not start a long battle by ceding half the map to the enemy.
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Mar 9, 2017 05:34
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my dad posted:I must formally protest dividing our forces like this. Let the ACs take up positions near Stethoscope, let the first cav come in to support them, and only then send my cavalry the long way around to the North. We should not start a long battle by ceding half the map to the enemy. I understand your position. If we'd had more forces, we'd do it. But we need guns, and most importantly, eyes on as much of the map as possible. And I am skeptical of the ACs ability to stop enemy cav from getting into Steth. They will probably be able to stop a breakout, but our timetables have enemy cav getting into town one turn before the ACs can fire.  My concern is that a late-arriving cav brigade following your plan will have to assault Stethoscope while taking fire as they cross a ford in single file. What is we put the 6th Cavalry Brigade in the southern edge of Effyaders Forest to cover the M4 ford? They could cooperate with the scout AC there, plus any other ACs we detach later on.
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Mar 9, 2017 05:48
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Monster wall of chat chat coming. tld;dr my dad wants to send the 6th Cavalry Brigade to charge Stethoscope. I disagree. Other goons are on the fence. Stay tuned. The Council of Goonrond posted:my dad (GM): We can minimize the scattering, though
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Mar 9, 2017 07:27
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After looking again I'm cautiously in favor - the nature of the AC brigade seems like it will reward high risk tactical thinking. Of course, if it goes wrong there's nothing my division can do to support you.
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Mar 9, 2017 09:40
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thatbastardken posted:After looking again I'm cautiously in favor - the nature of the AC brigade seems like it will reward high risk tactical thinking. Good to know. For those who don't want to wade through a wade through a wall of text, the gist of my dad's plan is to have the armored cars hold the 6 o'clock road of the Chemins. Then, send the 6th Cavalry Brigade (arriving on Turn 4) charging into Stethoscope. The goal is to hold these positions for as long as possible. As I said in Roll20, there are some things I wanted to know before we do this, mydad 1) Given that xtehetenth's brigade will have to do the charge, I want his take on this. There's also option of switching commands (if both agree, obviously), so that my dad takes the 6th Cavalry Brigade. 2) Loel's opinions on this. As the Corps commander, he'll need to determine what to do if this plan succeeds or fails. 3) A fallback plan. How is the 6th going to get back across the middle river without being destroyed? What conditions would trigger a withdrawal? 4) The plan's probability of success if two German cav brigades are in the Stethoscope area at the time of the 6th Brigade's assault, instead of the one the plan seems to assume. 5) Trin's info on emergency reinforcements -- info I've now dug up. Here's the most salient bit. Trin posted:A brigade of Belgian infantry will enter the map in the region of Trois Freres if: the enemy enters Saucisson Vallee or the Foret d'Effyaders on Day 1; or the enemy crosses the western north-south road on a subsequent day. This strikes me as too little, too late. If we get stomped at Stethescope and lose the 6th Cavalry Brigade, the 7th Cavalry Brigade and the remaining armoured cars will not be enough to cover the middle river's fords and will likely get flanked. Given the failure of our last large-scale cavalry charge against enemy troops in a town, at this point I am skeptical of the plan. I think it is a very high-risk (albeit potentially high-reward) strategy that could doom us to losing huge amounts of men and ground. Or it could buy us vital time. I'm interested in hearing the opinions of others before I make my final decision. Bacarruda fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Mar 9, 2017 |
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Mar 9, 2017 10:18
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Hunt11 posted:
sullat posted:Do we want the wire at the edge of the forest or about an inch away from the edge of the ford? Our defenders will need to be at the edge of the forest to shoot out, and I think they would appreciate if the Germans are really tangled up trying to push across the ford. Consider the scenario: A German brigade approaches the ford. Our boys are shooting at them from cover, preferably from a trench as well. They need to stagger across single file, and then are immediately stopped by the wire, backing up the entire brigade. They will be in each other's way, while our lads will have an extra turn to happily shoot at them. This maximizes the confusion while minimizing the wire usage. Hunt11, I think sullat's idea of putting the wires near the ford is the ideal solution, but may not be viable due to the presence of enemy units. I think sullat's plan (or at least the gist of it) should be the primary wiring plan, with your wiring plan as the backup, allowing the engineers to work with less fear of being fired upon. Thoughts?
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Mar 9, 2017 10:24
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I think at best taking Steth with the cav buys us an extra couple of turns, before the cav is hit with infantry and driven out. Do we need those turns to get our own infantry set up? Given the distances involved I don't think it's all that practicable to plan for holding the town in the long term.
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Mar 9, 2017 10:31
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Interrupting your regularly-scheduled staff debate with some gifts from Pere Guerrier:    Enjoy! More are coming, but I have to admit I am not reading this thread as closely as I do the other one and hence I might not be aware of all the Cool Stories (tm), and also it's a bitch and a half to find a full OOB here. If someone did not take part in Part 1, the good news is I am open to requests for what the banners should have. Have fun.
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Mar 9, 2017 11:31
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Thanks Tevery, that's very kind of you.
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Mar 9, 2017 13:52
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I'm down for the stethescope plan. I think the advantages are such that we need to consider it. Two caveats above and beyond Bac's: I lead it. My dad would enjoy it too much  More seriously, it's a high risk/reward proposal, and while I agree we should definitely consider it, I'd prefer it happens over my reservations because we're more likely to get things right and less likely to have a whoopsie like the one that cost us half our cav companies in the first set of turns last time. We do staff work to support it. I want to know what cases it pays off big in, what cases it's likely to be costly but worth it, what cases it's obviously non-tenable and we need to pull back (those need to be specified, they go into my orders), and what cases it's non-tenable and I won't be able to react properly in time (those need to be figured out so we know if it's worth it. This means orders go in my tonight, and I'd want support drafting them. I'll be around after 5:30 or so EDT. Also, I'll make some speculative compositions for the Germans, I'd really appreciate it if you did the same, curly. Does that sound fine to the rest of you? xthetenth fucked around with this message at 14:40 on Mar 9, 2017 |
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Mar 9, 2017 14:26
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xthetenth posted:I'm down for the stethescope plan. I think the advantages are such that we need to consider it. Agree with both points. Let's set the wheels in motion and start planning. Staff officers and 3rd Division officers -- here is what we need: 1) Detailed analysis of German cases/courses of action. -What routes of movement will they head down? -What is the timetable for German operations? How fast can they get people to key terrain (assuming they use marching order and battle order sensibly)? -How many German units do we expect? When are they likely to arrive? I think it is very likely we will encounter two German cavalry brigades immediately, and that they will be quickly reinforced by 1-2 more cavalry brigades, plus some infantry during Day 1. -How fast can they get to different positions? (taking into account battle order, marching order, roads, and fords) -How will they react to contact? -How will these reactions affect us? -Can the Germans bypass Stethoscope and cross the M1 fords? What is the timetable for cavalry taking this route? (assuming they begin moving in marching order, then switch to battle order at some point) 2) Detailed contingency and operational plans -When will 6th Brigade (and the Armored Cars) retreat across the river? How many German forces will be needed to face a retreat? What route will they take? How long will this take? What is the risk of them taking fire and losses during this process? -How will 6th Brigade deploy in town if they take it? What will their fields of fire be? -What will the Armoured Cars fields of fire be? How well can they support our men in Stethoscope? -What is the backup plan if 6th Brigade has to abort their attack on Stethoscope? -How many German units can the Armoured Cars and 6th Brigade deal with at once defensively? -Will a charge by 6th Brigade succeed if there are two German cav brigades in Stethoscope? -How will 7th Brigade be employed in this battleplan? Once this is done, if the plan looks good to me, we'll pull the trigger and put it into action. -- While we are at it, here are other things staff offiers can help with. 1) A timetable analysis of German advances for infantry and cavalry, taking into account: marching order, battle order, cavalry speed, infantry, speed, ford and bridge penalties (units can use marching order on bridges, fords must be traveled one company at a time), etc, etc. 2) A terrain analysis that identifies our best defensive positions, artillery sites, etc. and our best approach/retreat routes for each. 3) A timetable for our guys and how fast we can get infantry, cavalry, and armored cars to each spot. 4) An assessment of potential German plans accounting for aggression, caution and everything in between. 5) Other courses of action for our team. 6) An engineering plan related to point 4) that lays out where and when we should be placing trenches, roadblocks, and wire. Bacarruda fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Mar 9, 2017 |
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Mar 9, 2017 14:41
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 If the engineers find themselves with time on their hands some pre-prepared trenches for the PBI to use as jumping off points might not go astray. Like so:  Other than that 7th has no further requests. Best of luck, gentlemen. Brigadiers report in within 24 hours or face dismissal. thatbastardken fucked around with this message at 14:44 on Mar 9, 2017 |
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Mar 9, 2017 14:42
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If the fritzes are already at Stethoscope we should certainly not charge in to it.
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Mar 9, 2017 15:43
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thatbastardken posted:Brigadiers Acebuckeye13 and mllaneza, please report in and acknowledge you have received your orders! I'm here! The 20th will hold Foret de Effyaders come hell or high water, whichever comes first.
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Mar 9, 2017 16:02
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Tevery Best posted:Interrupting your regularly-scheduled staff debate with some gifts from Pere Guerrier: Here's the current OOB 3rd Cavalry Division commander -- Bacarruda RNAS Armoured Car Brigade commander sixkiller 6th Cavalry Brigade commander -- mydad 7th Cavalry Brigade commander -- xthetenth Royal Horse Artillery commander (defunct roe) -- abortretryfail 7th Infantry Division commander -- thabastardken 20th Infantry Brigade commander -- Acebuckeye13 21st Infantry Brigade commander -- mllaneza 22nd Infantry Brigade commander -- Eddy-Baby Royal Artillery commander - lenoon Royal Engineers commander -- Hunt11 KYOON GRIFFEY JR -- Open XO grassy gnoll -- Open Terrifying Effigies -- Open Brigade sullat - staff And, if you are interested, the regiments in each unit. We have quite a nice representation from the His Majesty's guards (the Grenadier Guards, the Scots Guards, the Life Guards, the Royal Horse Guards) and rather a lot of Scotsmen (the Scots Guards, the Borderers, the Highlanders, and the Royal Scots Fusiliers). 20th Bde: 1st Grenadier Guards, 2nd Scots Guards, 2nd Borderers, 2nd Highlanders 21st Bde: 2nd Bedfordshires, 2nd Yorkshires, 2nd Royal Scots Fusiliers, 2nd Wiltshires 22nd Bde: 1st Royal Welch Fusiliers, 2nd Royal Warwickshires, 2nd Queen's, 1st South Staffs 6th Cav: 1st (Royal) Dragoons, 10th (Prince of Wales's Own Royal) Hussars, 3rd (Prince of Wales's) Dragoon Guards, C Battery RAH 7th Cav: 1st Life Guards, 2nd Life Guards, Royal Gorse Hards, K Battery RAH No. 3 (Eastchurch) Squadron, Royal Naval Air Service Bacarruda fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Mar 9, 2017 |
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Mar 9, 2017 16:09
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Acebuckeye13 posted:I'm here! The 20th will hold Foret de Effyaders come hell or high water, whichever comes first. You're in Flanders, old chum. Hell is high water. KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:If the fritzes are already at Stethoscope we should certainly not charge in to it. What if it's one of those dinky little Jaeger brigades, a smaller formation still in marching order or a handful of cav companies corseting infantry brigades like last time? Do we still not want to charge? Do we think we'll be able to reliably describe the difference if we would want to charge those? Keep in mind that we are quite likely not in a mirror match. Judging by the structure of our reinforcements, our fast units have been riding hell for leather for a while and have pulled away from the main body en route to defensive positions. The enemy is advancing with their main body. We may be arriving no later than them but I'd expect their biggest advantage is not having a staggering day and a half gap between their fast movers and their main body. It's entirely likely that one of these cases applies: 1. The first few turns don't have them at a noticeable advantage in forces as their scouting units come in with either Jaegers or cav, quite likely in single or maybe dual brigade strength, but those will be followed up more quickly and with more units. In this case, we need to blunt their leading edge if possible to prevent them from building up too significant advantage, or force them to drop back to where we can build up our defenses with various force multipliers. 2. Similar to last time, they don't have actual organic cavalry and their main body is on the table. I think this a reasonable possibility. After all, they are the significant enemy forces we're desperately trying to intersperse anything between them and their objective. There is the possibility in this case that the entire divisional cavalry is covering the leading edge brigades, which changes things back, but that would mean that we have an opportunity to blunt their fastest exploitation force in a sharp action in Stethescope if they rush for it and protect a sound position to bloody their infantry and force them to deploy. In both of those cases there's a sound argument to be made for a fight in Stethescope, however it's very dependent on the enemy quantity in there. Can we reliably tell the difference? Is it worth the risk if we can't? (I'd say no) Can the armored cars put up a good fight and avoid excessive losses without the cavalry supporting? xthetenth fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Mar 9, 2017 |
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Mar 9, 2017 16:16
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All I want is to say is that inbetween the rounds, I didn't sufficiently state how much fun it was to have you as my opponent. Hopefully, you'll take part in some other round and we'll face off again. my dad fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Mar 9, 2017 |
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Mar 9, 2017 16:40
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my dad posted:All I want is to say is that inbetween the rounds, I didn't sufficiently state how much fun it was to have you as my opponent. Hopefully, you'll take part in some other round and we'll face off again. As an aside, do we know who the enemy CO is this time?
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Mar 9, 2017 16:48
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The enemy GOC has, so far, decided to keep his own counsel.
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Mar 9, 2017 16:52
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Im betting cryo or heygal
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Mar 9, 2017 16:54
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thatbastardken posted:Brigadiers Acebuckeye13 and mllaneza, please report in and acknowledge you have received your orders! 21st Brigade acknowledges receipt of orders; on arrival, quick march through Saucisson Vallee and the central road to take up blocking positions between Foret de Effyaders and Bois de Blob. On arrival we will deploy to deny the enemy the fords M3-M6 in coordination with the engineering plan. The brigade officers will be prepared to advance in support of fighting in Stethoscope if ordered or it appears advisable.
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Mar 9, 2017 17:17
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Loel posted:Im betting cryo or heygal If it's heygal we need to stay away from Windows but can count on heavy infantry doing most of the lifting at push of pike. If it's cryo we are facing a calculating and implacable military mind so who loving knows what that means.
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Mar 9, 2017 17:23
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My argument against being cowardly with our ACs: They're going to be in cover from both enemy vision and from enemy fire. We're guaranteed to get at least one shot off as long as our formation has orders to stop and shoot if they see the enemy before they move on a turn. It's 9 elite machine guns (if we deduct the scout). They'll loving melt any brigade. My counterargument against Germans starting off with 2 cav brigades right off the bat is as follows: Only the ACs can have a chance of holding something like that off, if they're in a defensible position like the Chemins road. I don't think even an ambush in Effyaders would let our cavalry hold off 2 brigades of enemy cavalry. I don't think this game is going to be decided by something that is effectively a coinflip, namely, us deciding to defend the exact lane the enemy chooses to attack, out of 2 not protected by ACs available, with the enemy getting there at the same time we do. My argument for moving our cav into Stethoscope: I think it has a very high chance of being empty when it gets there. And everyone trying to poke their head out in the West outskirts will be shot my a lot of ACs. The enemy won't get more than one round of shooting off, and we've seen the results of cavalry charging a single brigade holed up in a town in Quatreprouts. Don't mistake 3 fully entrenched German brigades in a formation prepared to take a frontal assault for a single half-blind brigade completely unaware of our plans.
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Mar 9, 2017 17:30
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lenoon posted:If it's heygal we need to stay away from Windows but can count on heavy infantry doing most of the lifting at push of pike. If it's cryo we are facing a calculating and implacable military mind so who loving knows what that means. Important question re: cryo. We all know he had a lot of relevant concerns. Did he have sound, decisive answers? Honestly, I think the most concerning setup would be Cryo as Chief of Staff with Heygal's ear. I think that combination would be aggressive but not leave many openings. my dad posted:My argument against being cowardly with our ACs: They're going to be in cover from both enemy vision and from enemy fire. We're guaranteed to get at least one shot off as long as our formation has orders to stop and shoot if they see the enemy before they move on a turn. It's 9 elite machine guns (if we deduct the scout). They'll loving melt any brigade. I tend to agree. Also I think that it's quite likely the Germans will have superiority in forces early but their formation won't have self-selected for mobility like ours has, and in that case the ground is vital to making our mobility count against their numbers.
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Mar 9, 2017 17:36
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Admin note. People need to read the last 2 pages. Lots of important things have been posted.my dad posted:My argument against being cowardly with our ACs: They're going to be in cover from both enemy vision and from enemy fire. We're guaranteed to get at least one shot off as long as our formation has orders to stop and shoot if they see the enemy before they move on a turn. It's 9 elite machine guns (if we deduct the scout). They'll loving melt any brigade. It is potentially nine machine guns firing. The conga line of ACs has more limited fire against targets on its flank, which is where Stethoscope will be. I agree that the Chemins is a very strong position and that we should make good use of it. I am more unsure if we have the men to hold it. my dad posted:My counterargument against Germans starting off with 2 cav brigades right off the bat is as follows: Only the ACs can have a chance of holding something like that off, if they're in a defensible position like the Chemins road. I don't think even an ambush in Effyaders would let our cavalry hold off 2 brigades of enemy cavalry. I don't think this game is going to be decided by something that is effectively a coinflip, namely, us deciding to defend the exact lane the enemy chooses to attack, out of 2 not protected by ACs available, with the enemy getting there at the same time we do. Trin's entire MO so far has been to give us asymmetrical scenarios. That's a strike in favor of the Germans outnumbering us early and often. Also, I strongly doubt he'd give us the firepower of the Armoured Cars without giving the Germans something similarly imposing to compensate. That's another strike for two+ brigades on-map at the start. This is purely circumstantial, but not the geography of the 2 o'clock and 4 o'clock roads seems like a good dynamic for multiple German brigades advancing at us at once. That's the third strike for there being multiple German brigades hitting us pretty early on. I would very much like to be wrong about this. But the nature of the scenario suggest to me we're going to be going up against 3:2 or 2:1 odds for much of this fight. This doesn't rule out aggressive action, but it makes it less-advisable. Any losses we take from rashness only put us further behind in the numbers game. In light of all this - let me ask: -What are the odds of 6th Brigade's charge (and clearing operations) succeeding if the Germans have two (or more) brigades in the town, its outskirts, the 12 o'clock of the Chemins, etc.? How many losses will they take in the best case and the worse case? -What the consequences for 3rd Cavalry Division and the rest of the army if 6th Brigade is destroyed? -Can a weakened 6th Brigade fend off a German counterattack or charge without help (or very limited help) from the armored cars? If the Germans come from the NE, that is a very real possibility. One bright note here. German troops may not be of very good quality. I've been doing some homework on the Race of the Sea battles this fight is probably based on. Historically, most of the German troops committed to this part of Belgium were elderly Landwher reservists and student volunteers. my dad posted:My argument for moving our cav into Stethoscope: I think it has a very high chance of being empty when it gets there. And everyone trying to poke their head out in the West outskirts will be shot my a lot of ACs. The enemy won't get more than one round of shooting off, and we've seen the results of cavalry charging a single brigade holed up in a town in Quatreprouts. Don't mistake 3 fully entrenched German brigades in a formation prepared to take a frontal assault for a single half-blind brigade completely unaware of our plans. Having been over this before in Roll20, I think it has a very high chance of being occupied or having troops (with MGs and horse artillery) in the 12 o'clock portion around the time our ACs get there and certainly well-before 6th Cavalry Brigade gets there at appx Turn 10. If we've realized its key terrain, so have the Germans -- and they'll be making a concerted effort to get men there as fast as they can. They don't need to be aware of our plans to see Stethoscope as key terrain and act accordingly. If the Germans get off a few shots 6th Cavalry Brigade takes causalities, that's not good for us. If the worst happens, a veteran cav brigade can probably take any morale check. But a 10 chit brigade doesn't have much staying power. Every lost cavalry chit costs us 5% of our core fighting force for the first 36 hours. Taking looses charging and fighting will make it much harder for the 6th to deal with brigade+ counterattacks and countercharges -- and that is their raison d'etre for being in Stethoscope. Furthermore, none of this address a key part of this plan: the exit strategy. How is 6th Brigade supposed to break contact? What is it's escape route? Under what conditions would it retreat? Where will it go? xthetenth posted:What if it's one of those dinky little Jaeger brigades, a smaller formation still in marching order or a handful of cav companies* corseting infantry brigades like last time? Do we still not want to charge? Do we think we'll be able to reliably describe the difference if we would want to charge those? I'd be curious to hear your answers to these questions, as well. --- I understand the core of your plan. I think it's bold. I think it's daring. I think it could win us the battle. However, it's be a bloody disaster if we lost 6th Cavalry Brigade for little gain. xtthetenth and I still need more information and details. If you and staff officers, could flesh things out, then I think the plan is more viable.  For staff officers, here's a few things I'd love some help with: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3809299&pagenumber=34#post470156223 Bacarruda fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Mar 9, 2017 |
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Mar 9, 2017 18:21
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Potential Enemy Plans - 2 Enemy Brigades Case 1: The Central Thrust  2 German Cavalry Brigades: One enters from northern board edge, one enters from Red Road. On turn 5, the Cyan brigade sets up in battle order in Stethoscope - moving half, so are eligible to shoot on that turn. The Red Brigade can either deploy into battle order to also defend Stethoscope, or perhaps they can leave a lane open somehow and allow the Red Brigade to simply keep moving forward in Marching Order. If the Red advance doesn't slow, then they arrive at the M4 crossing on Turn 5, are across in full force by Turn 6, and will be deployed on our side of the crossing in good formation by turn 8. This could result in them holding Stethoscope and a secure beachhead across the central river by the end of Turn 8. Case 2: The Northern Bypass  2 German Cavalry Divisions: One enters from the northern board edge, one enters from Red Road. On turn 4 the Red Brigade arrives in Stethoscope. On Turn 5 it deploys into Battle Order within Stethoscope. Meanwhile, a separate cavalry Brigade enters from the northern board edge. But instead of advancing on Stethoscope it turns north, wrapping around Taillis Nord and advancing along Uptop Road. An enemy cavalry division to do this will be across the M1 Crossing in good battle order by Turn 8, and will be in solid defensive position by Turn 9. Alternatively, they could keep pushing and be on the far side of the woods by Turn 10 in Battle Order, but not a good fighting formation. The larger point is they could theoretically bypass Stethoscope, which has the potential of allowing them to deploy reinforcements from roads further up the map at some point. Case 3: gently caress Stethoscope  The northern bypass could set itself on our side of the M1 crossing by turn 8, as before. The Southern Thrust can be across the M7 crossing on Turn 9 in battle order and decent formation. Alternative cases where the enemy only has 1 brigade can still follow these paths, and I believe these to be the most likely avenues of approach that they would use.
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Mar 9, 2017 18:28
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Case 3 strikes me as the least likely because it involves splitting their advance. They did that last time and lost a division in the opening and then a couple brigades at Cote. Reading their thread between games, they seemed *very* unhappy about deploying in such a way that lets them be defeated in isolation. So, lets rephrase it. If they have two brigades at Stethoscope arriving at the same time, what happens? If we only see one, where do our scouts need to be? How do we stop them once we know they are going nortth or south?
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Mar 9, 2017 20:23
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{Rough draft, will complete when home}. In total, for this operation, I have ten armored cars to work with. The strategic goal of the brigade is simple: prevent the enemy from establishing a bridgehead on the fords. Thus, the tactical objectives for the operation are two-folds: one, delivering a mighty punch to the Huns at the very start; and defending the fords until back up arrives. Simple, yes? For the plan to work perfectly, I order that the brigade be split into three different squads: • Red Squad (8 ACs). • Blue Squad (1 AC). • Orange Squad (1 AC). All the squads will be deployed in the road below Down Road. Red squad will commence the raid, crossing M7, and attacking the enemies coming to Stethoscope. For two or four turns the squad will stay in its positions, depending on four factors: enemies killed; casualties taken; total amount of enemies present in the field; and initial surprise of the attack. After the attack is done, the squad will split up, and two ACs will hold M7. Meanwhile, two ACs will be given to Blue squad and the rest to Orange squad. Blue squad will hold Foret de Effyaders, preventing the enemy from advancing through M1; Orange squad will hold M4 until the cavalry arrives.
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Mar 9, 2017 20:29
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 We're all going to die.
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Mar 9, 2017 20:30
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After giving it some thought, I think Case 2, Northern Bypass is most likely. Case 1 has several traffic jam points and leads into our defensive valley where we can surround them on 3 sides. Case 2 is more sneaky. Catches our attention with the fight for the crossroads, and grabs a couple northern fords while we are distracted with their main line. I think our initial scout deployment should be able to prove or disprove the theory, and they will hit our reinforcement trigger if they cross into the northern woods. Bacarruda, I remember you were considering moving your most northern brigade to support the center, what are your thoughts?
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Mar 9, 2017 21:21
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my dad posted:
ON THAT NOTE  Unrelated:  This one I made, then I learned ARF was moved to another post. Oh well! 
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Mar 9, 2017 21:26
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I love it, thanks man.
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Mar 9, 2017 21:39
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Helpful Advice for Brigadiers who are Writing Orders Here is a link to my advice post for brigadiers who will be writing orders. Please read it. In addition to this, I want to make or emphasise a few points. First, and most importantly: collecting everyone's orders is both time-consuming and boring, and I reserve the right to be pig-headed, overly literal, and to deliberately not interpret orders in your favour while adjudicating them, if it took a million years to work out what you wanted to do in the first place. Meet me halfway and I will do the same thing for you when well-meaning orders run into an unforeseeable little snag during the adjudication, as they often do. Standing Orders You may not vary or alter the Standing Orders; you must use the options and permutations available to you. If you want your brigade to react in fashion X when encountering situation Y, that is a conditional order. If you include conditional orders in the same part of your post as Standing Orders, they will very likely go astray because I keep track of conditionals and Standing Orders in a completely different way. Likewise, if you dribble your Standing Orders throughout your orders, I will get very irritated; keep them in a separate group, it's much easier for my bookkeeping. When setting your standing orders, I very strongly recommend that you use the exact form of words that I used. If you write "Break off automatically: No surrender!", I will probably understand what you mean, but I have to take a bit longer to translate that into the form of words that I use. It is much, much, much better to say "Fight to the last man", since that is the exact form of words and that is what I am expecting to see. If you do not set a Standing Order, the default is used; but once you have set a Standing Order, it remains set until you explicitly tell me to change it. (I will take suggestions for additional and alternative Standing Orders, but they will only be added if I think it's likely that they will see significant use on both sides of the battle.) Please note that Autonomous Brigades will have different Standing Orders, appropriate to their roles, to the ones listed in that post. I will provide the Standing Orders for Autonomous Brigades before the first such brigade enters the field. Again, if you will be in charge of an autonomous brigade, let me know what Standing Orders you think might be useful and I'll see what I can do. How Not To Miss The Deadline Deadlines are usually 5pm GMT. Once again, this means that if you are in an American or similar time zone, you will struggle to get orders in on deadline day itself, and should always get them in on the night before the deadline. If you can't, go have a pop at higher command and tell them to decide faster. Barring exceptional circumstances, you will always have at least 48 hours between updates; one day for your bosses to decide what to do, one day for you to decide how to do it. Look to your front! Get your own poo poo straight before you go jumping into other people's ponds with well-meaning advice. Model Orders I liked the orders contained in this post very much, and I encourage you to write your own orders in a similar fashion.
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Mar 9, 2017 22:39
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Ill put everything in a master post, tag me when your orders are ready, been approved by your commander, and been vetted by staff.
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Mar 9, 2017 22:48
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