Tactics: Attacking with a Cat A US Army Deck (Part 1 of 3)

NOTE: The following article is written within the context of 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 total destruction games in Wargame: Airland Battle.

I often hear people in the Wargame: Airland Battle community talk of the game mechanics favoring defense, or that after the initial rush, games tend to revert to trench warfare. I believe this is mostly due to use of trench warfare tactics, and not modern methods of force employment. I will from here forward refer to trench warfare tactics as "the old method", and modern methods of force employment as "the new method".

In the first part of this series I will describe the old and new methods of attacking. In the second part I'll show you my Desert Storm themed US Army deck, and describe how each unit fits into the new method of attacking. Finally in the third part I'll show you examples of the new method in use and provide some replays of the new method being used.

WHAT IS THE OLD METHOD?

The two most common methods of attack I see people using are either a mass of tanks/infantry advancing in the open, or by trying to find gaps in the coverage of a forces combined arms (for example attacking with helos hoping the defender doesn't have enough air defense units or ammo to stop them). The latter is easily defended against by using a tight combined arms defense, and adequate logistics, often only effects a small point increase, or risks more than the reward. Advancing with a mass of tanks/infantry in the open quite often fails against a prepared defense due to the huge lethality of modern weapons systems modeling in the game. Exposure to this lethality can be reduced by using the new method.

WHAT IS THE NEW METHOD?

The new method involves using cover, dispersion, combined arms, and suppression to reduce your attacking force's exposure to the huge lethality of modern weapon systems.

WHY ATTACK?

You might ask why attack, when I can just defend, and subject my opponent to the huge lethality of modern weapon systems? The answer is because with the new system you can use the reduced exposure to take objectives that will put your opponent at a disadvantage or remove an advantage they have such as denying a spawn point, or denying command points, or denying movement along a road or other avenue of approach, all the while causing more kill points than losses. Attacking is also more fun, and sooner or later everyone will be in a position where they will need to attack in order to win. Once you can effectively attack, there will be no where for the enemy to hide.

WHAT IS COVER?

Cover is anything that will either prevent a unit from being spotted, or block a weapon's line of sight to that unit. You should try to have cover for all of your units all of the time, except in the cases where they are moving from cover to cover using the other exposure reduction methods. If you think a units cover has been blown after the unit or it's firing has been spotted, move the unit to another location to keep it's location unknown. Smoke is a way of producing your own cover that is NOT used enough.

WHAT IS DISPERSION?

Dispersion is keeping units spread out to reduce the effectiveness of weapons such as bombs or artillery that can effect an area, thus reducing the weapons effectiveness. This becomes especially important when using cover, as massing units in one area of cover can greatly increase the effectiveness of these types of weapons for your enemy as it is often obvious which areas of cover are being using. You don't want a single powerful bomb destroying your entire attacking force. Dispersion also directly leads to your force having areas of crossfire, which will help deny the defending force some of their cover. Using dispersion and cover should be easier for a Cat A US deck, since you'll have fewer expensive units in your force.

WHAT IS COMBINED ARMS?

Combined arms is often in a simple way compared to a game of rock paper scissors. For example you might attack with your tanks, but the enemy can send attack helicopters to make quick work of them, so air defense is needed close by to shoot down the helicopters. Another example would be tanks attacking, and the enemy defending with ATGM infantry in buildings, which the tanks won't be able to spot until they are destroyed, so infantry and recon are needed to spot or destroy the threat. A tight and effective combined arms force will project a controlling bubble of influence on an area of the map. When I have a force occupying a portion of the map, I think to myself have I got RITAS?

WHAT IS RITAS?

RITAS stands for recon, infantry, tanks, air defense, and suppression. All these types of units are important for a tight bubble of combined arms that the enemy can't easily penetrate. Keep asking yourself is my combined arms bubble complete with RITAS?

WHAT IS SUPPRESSION?

Suppression is the effect on unit effectiveness modeled in the game by unit stunning, and unit morale. More often than not suppressing a unit will stun it for a few seconds, and cause that unit to become panicked for about 60 seconds depending on the level of experience of that unit. Why is being panicked such a bad thing? Well a panicked unit's accuracy is reduced by 50%, and the reload time is increased by 400%. So a panicked unit will be about 8 times less effective than if it were calm, making it almost completely useless. This is why weapons that don't really kill, but stun and panic are so important, my favorite of which happens to be the M270 MLRS which can quite often panic all of the enemy units in an entire area of the map. If you can suppress the enemy, then the lethality of the units able to shoot at your units while they move from cover to cover will be reduced, and your units will quickly be able to destroy the panicked enemy while remaining calm. I not care if there is a grouping of 3 T80U tanks in front of me, if it's suppressed I can kill it easily. Of course suppression works both ways, and if your attacking force becomes suppressed you will most often want to fall back, and try again after they have shaken off the effects of the suppression. If the enemy is using artillery to suppress your units in the same way, use yours in superior numbers to counter battery the enemies artillery.

***YOU SHOULD BE TRYING TO SUPPRESS EVERY ENEMY UNIT YOU ARE ENGAGING TO GIVE YOUR UNITS A HUGE ADVANTAGE IN EFFECTIVENESS.***

***IF YOU TAKE ONE SINGLE THING AWAY FROM THIS TUTORIAL, MAKE SURE IT'S THE FACT THAT PANICKED UNITS ARE 8 TIMES LESS EFFECTIVE THAN CALM UNITS, IT'S A VERY IMPORTANT GAME MECHANIC THAT NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE UNDERSTAND.***

SO HOW DO YOU PUT THEM ALL TOGETHER?

You will keep a tight combined arms force dispersed in cover, while using suppression on 1) - visible enemy units that pose a threat, 2) - known enemy locations, or 3) - obvious pieces of cover that you think are being used by the enemy or that you want to occupy, in order to either destroy that enemy or to move into new cover and further project a tight combined arms bubble in the direction of your objectives.

That's all for now, stay tuned for part 2!