Tactics: Situational Analysis

Combat Situation Puzzles

Situation: A passive enemy force in defensive situations without many weapons teams or artillery.

Response: Set up weapon teams and artillery of your own to bombard the enemy and engage at long range. This minimizes your casualties, though it will take longer than other approaches.

Situation: An enemy Sniper keeps depleting my infantry squads and forcing me to Retreat.

Response: You can try to rush the Sniper with infantry squads and force it to Retreat, but this only works if your opponent doesn’t support the Sniper with other units. The safest solutions are counter-sniping with your own Sniper, or using indirect fire (Mortars/artillery) and hoping for a good hit. A micro-intensive solution is a fast vehicle, like a Scout Car, Half-track, or light/medium tank, but this only works if your opponent doesn’t have anti-vehicle weapons nearby or you micro well enough to avoid any danger.

Situation: An enemy Mortar is pounding my defensive position.

Response: Move away! If you absolutely must hold the area, simply move your units around every minute or so to a new position. The best solution is to prepare an ambush by laying mines and moving your units back just far enough so that your opponent believes you have abandoned the area, then counterattacking when he advances on the point. You can use your own Mortar or artillery to take out the enemy’s, but this isn’t entirely reliable. You can prepare an assault on the enemy position with mobile units like infantry squads or light or medium vehicles. A good opponent will expect this, so you need to draw his attention away from defending his fire support units. For example, push an enemy sector to give the sense that you’re committing to an assault in that area of the map, this should draw away some portion of the defenders, then reposition your mobile force back to the original position in time to attack the Mortar or artillery. This is ideally done from multiple directions, or simply a single unexpected direction, so that your opponent’s AT guns and HMGs are less likely to be positioned appropriately and his units are less likely to escape your attack.

Situation: Enemy took my cut-off and is defending it with multiple infantry and HMGs, possibly garrisoned.

Response: The novice player sends several infantry squads in a direct assault against the position, hoping to win, but usually is forced to Retreat. In the early game, Snipers and Mortars are the best options for forcing an enemy force to leave a specific location. Later on, you can use artillery and tanks to do this. A faster and more difficult solution is using grenades or units with flamethrowers during a multi-pronged infantry assault.

Situation: I have an Assault vehicle and my opponent has anti-vehicle weapons.

Response: There are two types of anti-vehicle weapons to worry about, those that do damage and those that disable. Panzerschrecks, Guards Rifle Infantry, AT guns, and tanks fit into the first category. Soviet AT grenades, German Panzerfausts, and mines from both factions fit into the second category. If I have an assault vehicle, I am more concerned about Category 2, as I can use the unit’s speed to escape situations involving Category 1. If I have a heavy tank or fire support vehicle, Category 2 is annoying but the greater concern is the Category 1 weapons because they can quickly deal a large amount of damage if you don’t destroy them or escape.

Situation: I’m behind in territory but I just acquired battlefield superiority (e.g., my T-34 doesn’t have any counters on the field right now).

Response: Go to your opponent’s cut-off points and decap them immediately. You need to push the frontline up as far as possible to restrict your opponent’s resource income. When you already have a battlefield advantage in terms of available units, it’s more important to ensure your opponent doesn’t gain resources than to gain resources yourself.

Situation: I’m behind in battlefield superiority but I have more territory (e.g., the opponent has a vehicle that I can’t counter yet).

Response: Spread out your units as much as possible and harass everywhere. Don’t engage in major fights and retreat whenever your opponent’s killer unit approaches your men. Your goal is to limit the effectiveness of your opponent’s killer unit and refuse to give it juicy targets while you maintain your units until you have built the proper counter. Ideally, you’ll keep your opponent’s killer unit occupied on the flanks and maintain some resource income, but if he goes for your cut-off points (as I would advise him to do) then you need to deny him resources from the sectors close to his base. He can’t be everywhere at once, so take advantage of this.

Situation: I have superior mobile forces; my opponent has a superior defensive force.

Response: Threaten multiple areas of the map simultaneously and force your opponent to split his forces. You do need to be sure that you contain his force by contesting the frontline area because you cannot let him advance his entire force to take your cutoff points.

Most Common Mistakes

• Selecting a group of units and giving them all an order. You want to be controlling one unit at a time as much as you possibly can.
• Sending in vehicles first and/or sending them in unsupported. What’s better: Detonating a mine with an infantry squad or with a vehicle? You might say vehicle because it can be repaired for free, while infantry cost Manpower to reinforce, but you would be wrong. It’s nearly always better to send in a squad of infantry first when you’re moving into an area held by your opponent. Why? If an infantry squad gets into a bad situation, you can Retreat and, at worst, you’ll have lost a small amount of Manpower. If a vehicle runs over a mine, gets a damaged engine, and your opponent begins attacking with anti-vehicle weapons, there’s nothing you can do about it and no way to escape. What happens? You lose your entire vehicle. If this happens early, it can decide the game because your opponent’s vehicles can then move around without worrying about yours.
• Failing to counterattack after enemy units Retreat. It can be tempting to use a lull in combat for reinforcing your infantry squads to full strength or healing them, often by Retreating to base. Do not do this immediately after winning a battle. First, move up and capture enemy points. If you cannot possibly reinforce or heal in the field using bunkers or Half-tracks, then you should Retreat infantry units and withdraw heavily damaged vehicles for repairs. However, it’s best to maintain a small field presence to provide resistance when the enemy units return, buying your other units time to travel back to the front line, fully reinforced and healed, from your base.
• Greed in overextending. If you see an opportunity to seize ground, like after winning a major battle and forcing many enemy units to Retreat, it’s a good idea to be very aggressive. However, when those enemy units reinforce and return to the new front line, you need to be sure that your units aren’t spread out across the map capturing points. If necessary, fall back a little to allow enough time to regroup your units for battle.
• Being too passive and failing to scout the enemy’s position and exploit vulnerabilities. If you have trouble playing aggressively, you probably aren’t scouting enough. If you know where your opponent’s units are, you can confidently attack undefended areas.
• Not Retreating when nothing is to be gained from fighting on and needlessly risking the destruction of your units. Realize when a battle is lost and consider how best to conserve your units. It’s more important to keep your own veteran units alive than to destroy enemy units, unless they have even more veterancy. Err on the side of conservatism in unit preservation.
• As soon as squads are reinforced, sending them back into the fray instead of reflecting on whether to continue fighting in that area. If you just lost a major battle and your opponent is skillful, do not return to the same area to counterattack. It’s likely to be well defended and fortified with mines. Instead, use the time it takes for your units to reinforce to consider where you could attack that would be unexpected and frustrating for your opponent.