Wed Dec 01, 2010 9:48 pm
Sending a force ahead on passive wont win you any military control. My passive movement suggestion was in relation to penetrating deep into the enemies terrotiry to destroy railways or supply depots on the NEXT turn, on assault stance. Moving on passive will mean if your intruder units does get engaged by passing units despite being on "evade combat" (probably only other passing Cav has a high enough patrol value to force battle upon another high evade level Cav unit...maybe) then they will quickly disengage. Yes, the unit will retreat, but hopefully out of the way of the chance encounter and will be deep enough inside enemy territory and close enough to its target that it can assault move in turn two to attack a depot. The problem is that if it retreats probably wont have reached the important rail juntion you sent it to so won't be able to sabotage that important section (as you can't order a unit to rip up rails as it goes, only the rails in the region it starts the turn in).... breath.
By advance guard i mean a force either more mobile than your main force or one which i don't intend to commit to a pitched battle, i.e. one that can be force marched forawrd, on aggressive, through harsh weather, take casualties but be rotated out, back down the railway to recuperate. Units with a high police value would be good, maybe under a fast mover commander. Once this force had transitted a region you should have sufficient military control to move your main force forawrd by rail.
When you are advancing into enemy territory i would always try to move in defensive posture, so that you get the tactical benefit if attacked. You can move into a region with 5% control and still stay on the defensive. Any enemy in that region will generate a zone of control, which, depending on its comparitive strength may prevent you fron moving on to adjacent areas with a certain military percentage. In which case you would have to send detachments to win control there, or fight the enemy to win a greater military control percentage.
Even if you enterred the region intending to fight said stack you might want to enter on defensive, if you had that 5% remaining, so that you can recover any cohesion lost on the move forward, especially if that move was accross and obstacle such as a river. Chances are the enemy force would be on defensive, also so as not to abandon the tactical advantage. This strategy won't work if you don't have that 5% "bridgehead" but if you do it can really make a difference. Just remeber, your cohesion and health are two of the most important factors that combine to give combat strength. Your cohesion drops during your turn, not at the end, so making a 5 day move and then resting for 10 will help recover lost cohesion and keep your force combat worthy.
When besiegin structures i would move my stack into the region on aggresive if i wanted to try to bump a mobile force away from a city, leaving only the garrison (if that mobile force choses to retreat out of the region, not back into the structure). I would not move and assault on the same turn. Once in the region and in a position to assault the structure i would set my troops to "enter the structure" so that they are not sitting about, weakened, when a relief force arrives on day 14, which they will then assault (Nooooo!). If you enter the structure immediatley after assaulting then you will recover cohesion really quickly inside and won't be "attackable" unless the enemy also has an assault order (but in which case he will be moving and assaulting therefore attacking with reduced cohesion). Breath.
Finally, you can often speed up big stacks by detaching slow units, like siege arty or airfields and having them follow on the next turn. Armoured trains also seem to slow stack movement down if you don't have enough military control in the destination region. I would move that this rule be abolished as only genuine "move by rail" should be prevented in insufficiently controlled regions. Troop and logistic movements should require this as a railway adminsitration would have to be set up in the region to allow the kind of efficient high speed travel simulated - a couple of armoured trains don't need this level of organisation to do their thang.
The above may be useful but is probably too cautious for some people. I don't mind a war of positions, in fact i think it more fun, but it can't be the most productive, but then again its pretty safe, which is how i think a lot of commanders think (i.e. Jelicho at the Battle of Jutland being able to loose the war in a day, etc.).