Forts, Trenches, Feint attacks?

[Potätr]

It doesn't seem like the bombard option doesn't do anything to units in trenches. Does it only unhinge units in forts? Also, what units are allowed to do feint attacks? Seems unclear to me. Any help appreciated!

[charles_d_berger]

Suppressive fire has a dramatically reduced effect against entrenched enemies. It can still suppress but has much lower odds, and has a 25% to remove a level of entrenchment, but it's a very inefficient way to deal with entrenched troops. In the battle odds predictor, you can see the average steps suppressed and % entrenchment reduction chance for all combats before you click.

I believe any unit can feint attack, provided it is within command range, HQ has enough CPs, etc. But you can't feint across a river...

Do have a look at the manual, it's not 100% but has a great amount of detail on things like this!

[tgfseymoo]

the reason suppression seems to work poorly against entrenched units is because entrenched units in forest or cities cancel out any artillery effects the attacking unit may have. Therefore you are attempting to suppress the enemy with 0 artillery. If you bombard a unit that is entrenched out in the open it should still work pretty well.

Also the suppressing fire option is super likely to leave a city in ruins which makes it ultra-defendable so normally better to feint attack against units in city even if they are un-entrenched

[Potätr]

Originally posted by tgfseymoo:

the reason suppression seems to work poorly against entrenched units is because entrenched units in forest or cities cancel out any artillery effects the attacking unit may have. Therefore you are attempting to suppress the enemy with 0 artillery. If you bombard a unit that is entrenched out in the open it should still work pretty well.

Also the suppressing fire option is super likely to leave a city in ruins which makes it ultra-defendable so normally better to feint attack against units in city even if they are un-entrenched

so how do i deal with fortress-entrenched troops?

[Tigga]

Originally posted by SimplyMrMatt:

so how do i deal with fortress-entrenched troops?

Feint works well. Set-piece attack with engineer slightly less well. A regular attack from an elite infantry unit with three high attack specialist steps (ie. attack 8) will work in some cases.

Or just go around them and cut off their supply.

[Heinlager]

Set piece attacks are the tool for really dug in enemies, they require infantry with artillery that started their turn next to the enemy. But a lot depends on the HQ, if you have 1 command point suppression you might want to just use that a lot!

With all types of attack if the enemy is cut off from supply you can crack the position over multiple turns, so even 1 suppressed step from a feint attack can help a lot.

[Potätr]

Originally posted by Tigga:

Originally posted by SimplyMrMatt:

so how do i deal with fortress-entrenched troops?

Feint works well. Set-piece attack with engineer slightly less well. A regular attack from an elite infantry unit with three high attack specialist steps (ie. attack 8) will work in some cases.

Or just go around them and cut off their supply.

I'm trying to do the Hurtgen Forest mission and whether you chose to go for supply, or for the objective, everything is surrounded by fortified infantry and armor

[Potätr]

Originally posted by Tigga:

Originally posted by SimplyMrMatt:

so how do i deal with fortress-entrenched troops?

Feint works well. Set-piece attack with engineer slightly less well. A regular attack from an elite infantry unit with three high attack specialist steps (ie. attack 8) will work in some cases.

Or just go around them and cut off their supply.

I'm trying to do the Hurtgen Forest mission and whether you chose to go for supply, or for the objective, everything is surrounded by fortified infantry and armor

[Tigga]

There's a few places to push on that mission. Mostly I find it's about going around.

1) Break through in the north at Roer River. No forest here, pretty easy to smash through and hook around behind the forest.
2) There's a weak point south ofhte Hurtgen Forest objective - one of the German infantry units doesn't have any specialists. If you can reorganise your specialists to be engineer+sherman+sherman on an elite unit (perhaps replacing sherman with rangers if you are short on shermans) you can just crack that with a direct assault. Anything other than elite may struggle. In that case, sherman+engineer+arty and a set piece will often remove the fortification allowing you to go in the next turn.
3) The hills SE of St-Vith are an easy place to attack. You can meet up with the forces that pushed on the North, surrounding the forest.

[Potätr]

Originally posted by Tigga:

There's a few places to push on that mission. Mostly I find it's about going around.

1) Break through in the north at Roer River. No forest here, pretty easy to smash through and hook around behind the forest.
2) There's a weak point south ofhte Hurtgen Forest objective - one of the German infantry units doesn't have any specialists. If you can reorganise your specialists to be engineer+sherman+sherman on an elite unit (perhaps replacing sherman with rangers if you are short on shermans) you can just crack that with a direct assault. Anything other than elite may struggle. In that case, sherman+engineer+arty and a set piece will often remove the fortification allowing you to go in the next turn.
3) The hills SE of St-Vith are an easy place to attack. You can meet up with the forces that pushed on the North, surrounding the forest.

thanks friend

[Yogol]

Always lower entrenchment with feint attack using unit WITH AN ENGINEER: this will ALWAYS lower entrenched one step (so, when the enemy is fortified, you need to remove two steps, by attacking with a unit that has 2 engineers or with two units with 1 engineer).

Remember that you can add specialists to your unit in the deploy phase, either by buying them (this costs prestige) or by removing them from a unit that has them (with the HQ command "reorg" which costs one HQ-point) and then attach them to another unit (with the HQ command "Deploy", which costs NO HQ-points).

So, plan your attacks!
Decide which units will be used to lower entrenchments and add the engineers to them.

And FYI... feint attacks will almost always work and will never do damage to you. So you can safely add engineers as the only specialist to a low-level troop and add the specialist that add to damage (Daimler, Sherman,...) to the other units.

[Tigga]

Pretty sure feint doesn't lower entrenchment with an engineer. I might be wrong, but I don't think I'm wrong.

[Vanagandr]

Originally posted by Tigga:

Pretty sure feint doesn't lower entrenchment with an engineer. I might be wrong, but I don't think I'm wrong.

Tested it, it doesn't. At least not as a rule.