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Compiling Added Space's and Saros' orders into a single post. Added space, please strikethrough ([s] tag) your orders if you see this before adjudication so there are no duplicate orders. Saros, I interpreted your "further south" order into something more specific, please override if it does not meet your approval. Unit should advance at 4" intervals due to rifle fire until it reaches the limit, I think. Hold until turn 26. On turn 27 adopt the following formation and move south to fire on enemy trenches. The north end of the trenches is the limit of movement; two companies may enter the end of the trenches but the rest must stop immediately north of them.  On turn 30 return to initial positions. conditional posted:IF no enemy are visible or known to be within 12" range, AND it does not break the main brigade's movement, Final positions:  When sighting an enemy in attack stance, Keep moving When attacking the enemy, Use Rifles When an enemy company Breaks Off or Retreats Suppressed, Do not pursue Break off automatically at half casualties Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 13:51 on Apr 7, 2017 |
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Apr 7, 2017 13:41
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| # ? Jun 5, 2024 00:14 |
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 *Command Structure* *Roll20 table* *Pre-turn checklist* *Travel times* *Movement, cover and spotting* *Firing and combat* *Firing demo* *Billy bonus* *Command and Control* *Night rules* *Writing orders including standing orders* *Relationship between standing orders and conditionals *Example orders* *Brigades, Fatigue, New terrain, indirect fire, engineer times, new hill spotting* *Trenches and terrain* Arrows! Formations! Conditionals! Standing Orders! IV Corps - Orders to 40th Div, Rest of Corps 40th Division 86th Bde, Engineers 88th Bde 26th Division - with corps orders 51st Bde 52nd Bde 53rd Bde 54th Bde - Brigadier Saros may amend - please check posts after this one. Artillery Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Apr 7, 2017 |
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Apr 7, 2017 13:42
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steinrokkan posted:
I'm pretty worried about this, you will be in direct fire or call in range of the arty to the sw.
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Apr 7, 2017 14:06
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I can't accomplish stated goals otherwise. Being worried isn't constructive criticism if there's no alternative. In addressing these concerns, one would have to begin by asking if there's much use in attacking those trenches in the first place (so as to make the risk worth it), rather than fuss around the minutae of company placement in a corridor barely wide enough to accommodate a regiment.
steinrokkan fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Apr 7, 2017 |
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Apr 7, 2017 14:28
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sniper4625 posted:
Sniper what are you doing. The ABSOLUTE top priority is firing on their guns before they relocate and the way these parse to me is you do it much later. North battery should be on counterfire right away and south can target the trenches. North also needs to differentiate between howitzers and 7.7. There is good odds their plane saw your artillery and they will be targeting you right away
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Apr 7, 2017 14:31
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unless somebody noticed a break in their artillery fire, we can assume those artillery are there on turn 1, but probably not for long after that. so i guess shelling those positions should be done sooner rather than later maybe we should put less artillery down on the infantry in general? we're not trying to take those positions, after all, and bombing the artillery will help our attacking infantry just as much probably given the likelihood of supporting fire so yeah, maybe refocus the first few turns on triple-tapping those artillery trenches? still have artillery ordered on those trenches for all 8 turns, but less of it and maybe focus the last 4 turns more on support fire since the artillery may have moved?
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Apr 7, 2017 17:14
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 The adjudication begins...
Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Apr 7, 2017 |
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Apr 7, 2017 19:13
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Just to check, even though it's too late, our goal for this turn is to fortify and set up a full defensive line north to south while forcing back BEF slightly? Just asking because I need to start helping with planning more I think.
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Apr 7, 2017 19:27
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it seems like we're not worried about the gap in our FdE line for this turn - i guess we have spotting there. seems like we're going with status quo in the FdE and trying to bloody the enemy's nose while we're status quoing. i hope our troops make it back to where they started at the end of this update!
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Apr 7, 2017 19:30
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oystertoadfish posted:unless somebody noticed a break in their artillery fire, we can assume those artillery are there on turn 1, but probably not for long after that. so i guess shelling those positions should be done sooner rather than later Not bad points, alas I was at work and unable to change things around in any event. One more update at full visibility so hopefully might be able to get eyes on wherever they move to. My kingdom for a CAVBDE.
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Apr 7, 2017 19:46
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It might've been fun to pull a few of the surviving cav bdes out of the line after the arrival of the first infantry div. Get some replacement chits in them, then try a sort of infantry out front to absorb fire, then cav charges from slightly behind combined arms attack.
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Apr 7, 2017 20:48
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at the very end of my cavalry brigade's life I had them planned to counter charge that big cav bde that hit the side of our first infantry in the fde, and it would've worked if indirect fire hadn't knocked us out of commission. would've been nice but we used our cavalry aggressively and lost long term flexibility. arguable that it was worth it, I suppose. seems like the enemy did something similar
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Apr 7, 2017 21:17
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Yeah it was a scramble for position and it basically worked out for us but it's fun to imagine wacky intricate attacks with staggered and offset infantry and cav or something.
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Apr 7, 2017 21:42
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As with every iteration, I think we learned a bunch of things we can take forward into future rounds. Especially looking forward to the additions 1915 will bring.
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Apr 7, 2017 22:03
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Saros posted:Criticizing a known competent brigade commander over what he already knows and can do nothing about. Saros posted:Ill informed Light harrassing fire on another brigadier. It's not even correct, their guns moving instead of supporting is the best possible result! This is starting to get in my grill, Saros. It's everyone's right to discuss tactics but you in particular need to spend more time analysing enemy behaviour and the consequences of your own proposals before you post a critique other peoples orders. I've probably taken more suggestions of yours on board than anyone else's, but I'm sick of reading posts where you're putting monsters under the bed with apparently zero thought on how probable it all is. Soon you are going to have the division that will make the difference between doing OK and winning big. The rest of the team including myself will be effectively working to support you. I expect you to lift your game with good risk analysis and carefully considered, well crafted orders. You will also have responsibility for a bunch of brigadiers that you will need to both advise and take proposals from. Do it properly. In the GM's much more blunt words: Trin Tragula posted:Look to your front! Get your own poo poo straight before you go jumping into other people's ponds with well-meaning advice.
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Apr 7, 2017 22:12
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One thing I have learned and thought about is timing our artillery. I know Close Combat is a beast at killing the enemy but I think regular fire even rifle fire can be deadly too. We know that friendly artillery can possibly hit a friendly chit within 2" while rifle fire is 8" and other weapons further. So I was thinking in the future when assaulting an enemy position say like a trench we have the artillery just fire non stop, not halting even when we get close. meanwhile our infantry approaches within rifle range and just unloads on the enemy. If I am judging this right the artillery fire missions should come in first as artillery fires first, killing and suppressing enemy targets. Any non-killed and non-suppressed enemy will fire a little return fire and then the rifles/MGs and TMs open up and if I am right if we get a suppress result on a chit that is already suppressed it dies? Another thing I would do is assign maximum artillery from every battery to where we want to assault. Counter battery is good and has its place but if we want to assault a fortified location we want to lay down everything we have artillery wise to maximize damage output before the assault goes in. In fact if we wanted to counter battery and are in range then I would suggest only counter battery firing on the exact turn we charge.
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Apr 7, 2017 22:24
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I believe you are right. There are two things to consider, though. - Limited number of artillery missions - this isn't actually an argument against your point at all. It's rather an argument to support making few powerful attacks at places that matter over seeking a bunch of skirmishes. This has been a topic of debate since the beginning of these games, and arguably is the reason why we are not doing better in this match (not blaming our current esteemed command). - Counter-battery fire - again, this is more of a matter of making the artillery well-programmed and dynamic in its orders than a hard deterrent from using it as direct infantry support. One more thing to remember - artillery is not only good at killing things. It can also be used to deny land, and cut off enemy reinforcements from joining a battle, thus allowing the attainment of a sufficient local superiority in a battefield that would be otherwise unfavorable to an attack. This, however, would require a detailed analysis of simulated operations under the current ruleset to evaluate as a tactic. Can artillery be really used to block enemy movement if the movement and shelling stages do not occur concurrently?
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Apr 7, 2017 22:35
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I'm away and only phoneposting at the moment so I basically have to be brief and obviously don't have access to the roll20 chat. I've been adding thoughts and commentary on things in when I think people have maybe overlooked something nothing more. I still think our top priority should have been to counterbattery their arty rather than shoot at trenches we don't even know for certain have occupants.
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Apr 7, 2017 22:35
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steinrokkan posted:I believe you are right. There are two things to consider, though. Artillery as a blocker was something I was considering while mulling interdiction missions overnight - as I understand it, I'd have to hope to get lucky to have the enemy be exactly in position mid-movement when the rounds come in. Would be interesting to see a rule varient where artillery missions affected any units moving into the beaten zone - perhaps limited to the later war as some mechanics are, but 30 minutes isn't that long for a WW1 barrage. In general I largely agree with your and Kev's points. Coordination and concentration of fire is the trick, just like everything else in this game.
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Apr 7, 2017 22:46
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Kev, Artillery is a tricky beast. I'm in agreement with the vast majority of your post too. The problem comes when the enemy calls for supporting fire - is it worth more to suppress the infantry or the artillery? We've compromised here by concentrating fire on the infantry first, hoping to permanently reduce their strength to make our boys' job easier. Then we're aiming to hit the bad guys' guns and reduce their support fire since that's the only way to stop their contribution. Don't forget that the southern battery is on call for support too and should suppress the infantry trenches. This relatively minor attack is designed to limit casualties, our brigades will retreat if things go wrong. It will serve to inform our later attacks as well.  a whole lot of privates, corporals and adjutants, at least you died in the name of science!
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Apr 7, 2017 22:47
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oystertoadfish posted:it seems like we're not worried about the gap in our FdE line for this turn - i guess we have spotting there. seems like we're going with status quo in the FdE and trying to bloody the enemy's nose while we're status quoing. i hope our troops make it back to where they started at the end of this update! This is an interesting point - we're playing a bluff there at the moment. If the enemy has decided to attack here this turn, we're going to be scrambling to kick them out. But the enemy has a perfectly reasonable defensive line and he's just seen a disasterous single brigade attack. We've just seen the his artillery moved as well which is hardly something you do right before an attack. So I think it's a reasonable bluff. We will, of course, do our best to re fill the hole before he calls it.
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Apr 7, 2017 22:59
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One last thing before the update, this is what we have on the sheet for the new division. Any changes to make? Definitely want to have it sorted by the time the next update happens. 1st (Guards) Reserve Infantry Division "Die Wacht am Rhein" Saros - OTF temporary command "A" "B" OTF Cokerpilot? "C" "D" Ikasuhito Added Space
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Apr 7, 2017 23:13
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if my temporary command is necessary i'd intend to mostly just put formatting and screenshots around whatever directives saros has time for obviously if saros were to be totally out of communication i would step up and make decisions, but im just sayin
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Apr 8, 2017 00:11
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That's exactly the idea. It might not even be necessary depending on the timing
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Apr 8, 2017 00:14
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Jaguars! posted:Kev, Artillery is a tricky beast. I'm in agreement with the vast majority of your post too. The problem comes when the enemy calls for supporting fire - is it worth more to suppress the infantry or the artillery? We've compromised here by concentrating fire on the infantry first, hoping to permanently reduce their strength to make our boys' job easier. Then we're aiming to hit the bad guys' guns and reduce their support fire since that's the only way to stop their contribution. Don't forget that the southern battery is on call for support too and should suppress the infantry trenches. I kind of covered supporting fire? As in the enemy supporting fire. As said while our boys are out of gun range of an enemy brigade I don't think that enemy brigade can call supporting fire until we move into spotting range right? So as long as we are outside of said range our arty hits the enemy boys in the trenches as soon as we do move in range or even a turn before if we want to be more cautious our artillery switches to suppressing the enemy artillery as our boys move in? Not sure if i made that clear or even explained it that way, also my post wasn't a concrete idea and we should do it. Just a thought I had and wanted to get people's thoughts and suggestions on it.
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Apr 8, 2017 00:27
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppYgrdJ0pWk Day 3, Turn 24 1200 German initiative The 86th proceeds south.  Up north, the 54th receives its order change without issues; the 51st doesn't. They'd better hurry up with that!  With rain restricting Fathis Munk's hill spotting to 12 inches, he turns south.  Your guns roar as they drop indirect fire into the enemy's trenches. Then something else happens.  Well, poo poo. Once again, the 53rd is pretty sure that if there are any guns within 24" of them, they haven't opened fire. Day 3, Turn 25 1230 British initiative The 52nd enters Ferme Chatte.  The 86th lines up.  Your guns have rallied from suppression!  Kablammo!  The 54th is pretty sure that these are the offending guns.  Meanwhile, a pair of engineers wander blithely up to the wood.  Not pictured: you suppress both of them with mortar and MG fire. Day 3, Turn 26 1300 British initiative As for the 51st...  Nah, I'm just loving with you. That's where they started the turn; then they succeed on the change of orders roll and swing round.  The 86th is still clearing Ferme Chatte.  The enemy rearranges the wreckage of your guns.  One of the enemy's engineers rallies, and it makes a swift departure to the rear; you concentrate fire on the other one and finish it off.  Then. about 4.4" to the south, an enemy machine-gun opens up against the 53rd and prompts a frank exchange of views.  Day 3, Turn 27 1330 British initiative The 52nd continues through Ferme Chatte, and about here-ish, they find a spot that might have been occupied for an extended period of time by a single company. There's no entrenchments, and only a faint whiff of stale tea in the air.  The 54th gets moving to the south, the 51st coming up to the edge of the forest.  The 51st sees an engineer to the south-west, and it makes a hasty departure.  Another round of indirect fire rains down on your guns.  A machine-gun opens fire, but achieves nothing other than giving away its position; you're out of range and can't answer back. In the north-west of the forest, it seems that nobody is within spotting range, and nobody opens fire. Mid-update overview:  Day 3, Turn 28 1400 British initiative The 54th pushes as far forward as it's allowed, looking for a target.  Kaboom!  The 51st positively identifies the offending guns.  Well, you've now been knocked down to almost half strength. Which means a morale check is imminent. Which means...well, we know what that means.  Day 3, Turn 29 1430 British initiative The 52nd is quite sure that there are no more tea-drinkers in Ferme Chatte, and heads off to the front again.  Kaboom!  Shells land all round you. Hits? Not so many of those, on either side. Day 3, Turn 30 1500 British initiative The 51st pulls back.  The 54th tries to get back to its trenches also.  Good news; that one company took fire from the machine gun as it retreated and died; but the rest got away clear. About six enemy guns' worth of fire fell on them while they were still in the open, and it all failed to score a single suppression. Your own indirect missions went off as planned, by the way. Oh, bad news? Morale check time. Day 3, Turn 31 1530 British initiative Here's the result.  Success! Without even a suppressed retreat. Truly this is a historic day. Maybe you don't really *need* a veteran division... End of update:  The rain is getting harder. There is a chance that open-field spotting may be restricted to 8 inches (16 inches for units that fire) before nightfall. Next deadline: Monday 10 April, 5pm. Busy weekend. Busy in general, actually. Still got time to run turns, just about.
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Apr 8, 2017 01:20
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Finally read up to current in this thread; avoided the Entente and Observers thread. Is it too late to sign up for any openings in command (even at bottom of the list) or to be a Staff Officer? For the Kaiser! EDIT: While writing this post the adjudication post came through. Let's murder some guns.
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Apr 8, 2017 01:20
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Hopefully the reason those trenches were empty is that I murdered everyone, otherwise will feel sillying giving them such a working instead of the gunline! Ah well.
sniper4625 fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Apr 8, 2017 |
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Apr 8, 2017 01:25
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I just realised we all messed up, we all need to take the blame for the fact that at the end of the last adjudication we saw rounds fall on our gun line and none of us noticed or mentioned it. We should have delayed the artillery i think unless we all agree or the majority do that the possible kills in the trenches make up for it. Also do we think those British guns are going to be there for long, if they fired on the last turn we will likely get only one turn of fire and I think we need to move our gun line before it gets plastered again. Of course the enemy may think they got them all. Time to decide gents do we go for caution and relocate or stand our ground and open fire? Also the enemy know I am in those north trenches I am expecting to get some incoming rounds soon from that enemy arty that just left. Any ideas?
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Apr 8, 2017 01:35
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koolkevz666 posted:I just realised we all messed up, we all need to take the blame for the fact that at the end of the last adjudication we saw rounds fall on our gun line and none of us noticed or mentioned it. We should have delayed the artillery i think unless we all agree or the majority do that the possible kills in the trenches make up for it. Certainly guilty, the last time they were really hitting us on the banks of the river was two updates ago, and I thought last update was them dumping into the forest, which is what I thought they'd continue with. Not that there's really a lot of good places to move said guns at the moment other than back to the rear - not taking the center trenches prevents us from going that way. We could take them into the forest - better that then knocked out. I don't see why they'd move - we've got no-one near 'em. sniper4625 fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Apr 8, 2017 |
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Apr 8, 2017 01:37
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So, to get this straight, the enemy somehow perfectly targeted our artillery line, despite having no vision on its position. They fire enough rounds to kill it. Then they stopped and switched to support fire, just in time to shred our mid-round offensive, which they again had no way to see us organize. Meanwhile, the trenches are preemptively cleared just in time to dodge our own artillery bombardment (no death circles in there). Trin, Observers, could someone please try to explain the sudden psychic powers of the other team? Because I'm smelling a giant rat. Initial angry proposal: stop the game, call the lines where they stand, and ban whoever had this sudden insight. Added Space fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Apr 8, 2017 |
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Apr 8, 2017 01:43
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I obviously can't say much but following all the threads closely I really don't think there's anything wrong. At least, if the other guys ARE cheating they're very VERY good at hiding it and rationalizing their decisions.
Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Apr 8, 2017 |
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Apr 8, 2017 01:48
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I could easily see them realizing that riverbank is the only place on the map where I could set up to hit their current main positions, and comedy answer they've got that single chit sitting up somewhere in view distance somehow on the map's northern edge. Questions of timing are something else, but I'm not convinced of skullduggery quite yet.
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Apr 8, 2017 01:51
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While I'm being angry, I'd like to congratulate Jaguars for sticking one brigade out on a branch and only getting it half-killed while accomplishing nothing. Progress!
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Apr 8, 2017 02:06
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That hurt.
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Apr 8, 2017 02:31
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It may be time to wind it down. I think we can still move up to the river in the south but the match has been going on a while and every time we start to gain some ground we get smacked hard.
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Apr 8, 2017 02:35
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Ikasuhito posted:It may be time to wind it down. I think we can still move up to the river in the south but the match has been going on a while and every time we start to gain some ground we get smacked hard. I would love to somehow take the north road, but otherwise agree. Denied a breakthrough, but decent enough field position.
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Apr 8, 2017 02:36
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Yeah, calming down a bit, I don't see us getting any further ahead. In the initial planning phases of this operation I was mentally counting anything over the river as a soft win for us, so I'd be more then happy to take it. e: I guess the British dice had one more lucky gasp and the plane spotted them. Added Space fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Apr 8, 2017 |
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Apr 8, 2017 02:41
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Added Space posted:Trin, Observers, could someone please try to explain the sudden psychic powers of the other team? Because I'm smelling a giant rat. As Crazycryodude said, there does not appear to be anything amiss. Both sides have had their lucky and unlucky breaks, and if someone on the Entente thread is cheating, they're being damned clever about it.
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Apr 8, 2017 02:43
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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the fact that the music video for this round is called 'high tide' may also be a hint that we should just get our poo poo together we lost the artillery duel this round, and i think they probably saw our guns moving with their aerial recon and were able to figure out where they were headed. we'll have to see how that affects us all in all the fog of war makes it hard to figure out what happened, but it seems like we either killed or drove off a bunch of infantry in the middle, so i guess we accomplished our goal for this round trin also made it sound like we were lucky not to rout, which is another risk of acting offensively. so we made it back to where we started, but we might not if we do it again. i'm not sure what to think about the artillery battle; we might have missed our chance to knock them out, or maybe something we didn't see went better for us there. it's possible that the enemy feels pretty bad about whatever might've happened to their infantry in the middle, or maybe they feel like it wasn't a big deal. either way, we're basically where we were 4 hours ago but with fewer artillery also note that we learned rain limits spotting distance - and we know where their one random chit was. tonight i guess we'll find out if they have orders that lead to us losing our wire again (also what happened with our engineer going up the southern road?) seems like we have two things to do in the last 4 hours before sunset: 1) figure out what our next play will be for the artillery poo poo 2) think about how we want to set up for the night in fde kev has surely now been spotted, and the enemy probably isn't strong enough to knock over since we're understrength up there anyway, so i guess he can just stay put and dare them to move him? is now the time to think about that gap in the forest? edit: rereading, for one thing its pretty funny how kev killed that engineer and almost got another one, but in general i guess we need to sit where we're at, really. that searcher remnant brigade probably wouldn't get back to the fde until early next update so i think it's just the guys who are already there. let the MGS and the trenches do their jobs. oystertoadfish fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Apr 8, 2017 |
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Apr 8, 2017 03:41
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