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| - Second, take a look at your opponenets force pool. That way you'll know what enemy troops you can expect in the battle. - Third, take a look at the map. Knowing the map is very important! Is it a meeting engagement? Are you the attacker or the defender? Where are the VL's? What is going to be your plan? - It's very important to know the different teams and squads. What they are capable off and what equipment they carry. For instance, almost every German team has short range AT equipment (faust), the British teams don't. Also the number of men in a squad is something you have to take into account. If you are going to make an attack with a squad of 3 men, they won't last for 10 seconds. - Take 3 (mostly) Command teams (sometimes two is enough). You can always change one or more of them for a Command vehicle. Keep in mind that after a Command vehicle is destroyed, you still can order the Command crew around. - Don't take to much vehicles/tanks. You will need infantry teams to secure VL's and clear the road for your vehicles. Usually there is a vehicle/tank limit. Know your tanks and take the best for the job. Beware, the German Jagdtanks and Assault guns don't have a turret, they can be immobilized with mortar or naval! - Guns, Schreck & Piat, MG's, Flamethrowers, Recon teams or Aufklärer, Tanks or other vehicles, Mortar, Infantry teams, Assault teams, Snipers or Scharfschütze...it all depends on what you have to do and what plans you have made. A few tips: - In a meeting engagement you often need to run to secure some VL's. Recon teams are well suited for that. They are lightly equipped, so they run faster and aren't tired that easy. A Recon vehicle can be even better (faster, certainly on roads) - Sometimes it is better to choose an AT team (Schreck) instead of an AT-gun. The Schreck is easy to move to another position, and less vulnerable, but has only 6 shots. A gun is very slow to move (sometimes it can't be moved, in buildings), when spotted easy to destroy, but has a lot more shells. The Piat lacks the range and power of the Schreck. Use it in close range and from above ( a 2 storage building is good). - MG's (heavy and light German, Vickers and Bren UK) can be deadly, when in a position with good LOS. But when you have to move them, they are slow and easily tired (certaily the heavy squads). Attacking isn't the best option for them. So use them for defence and suppressive fire. And find a nice spot for them with good LOS. Don't forget to put a few infantry teams near by to keep the enemy on a distance. - Snipers can be deadly too. But you can't keep them in the same spot the whole battle. One shot of an enemy gun or tank can be fatal. Try to find a few good spots and alter them regularly. Beware snipers can't secure a VL! - U can pick mortar to stop the enemy from running to the VL's or starting a swift attack. Some use them a lot, others don't. The bigger the map the more difficult they hit anything. And when you decide to select mortar, it is usually better to take two. One mortar isn't fast enough to stop a well planned rush or attack. And two mortars can drop some shelss in different places. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Make a battle plan: - The First thing you have to do is counting the VL's and the points they've got. Determine how much you need for a minor victory. And which VL's you need to grab for "insurance" after you get your initial VL's. Plan your initial assault around getting these VL's needed for a minor victory. Your next move is grabbing your insurance. - Second thing, determine what kind of battle it is going to be. Do you have to defend, attack or is it a meeting engagement? Defence: same as above, how many VL's to you need to keep for a minor victory? You cannot keep them all, your troops would be spread to much. Attack: see above. It is usually bestto have some lighter teams in your BG (like recon). Sometimes speed is important! Meet. Eng.: you definitely need some light units to grab those first VL's, the slower (heavier) teams can follow later. - Determine what troops you are going to need for that plan. (See the sections "Attack" and "Defence") - Knowledge of the map is very important! How and where you can make use of the terrain, buildings, trenches, ditches, slopes, trees, hedges to carry out your plan. Where can you give covering fire? Is it possible to use mortars to give suppressive fire or smoke cover? - Hold some teams (1 or 2) in reserve, behind your main force. This can be some infantry teams or a tank. When something goes wrong in your plan, these troops can always close the gap(s). - Stick to your plan. Even if it looks that your opponent had the same plan to go where you wanted to attack. It is far better to mislead your with a small attack somewhere else, then to rearrange your main force. Sometimes it is even better to throw in some more troops for the planned attack. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Deploy: - When you have only a small deploy zone, it is often a good idea to place a lot of your troops to the edge of the map. There is no flanking possibility for your opponent to attack these units. And when he uses mortar early in the game, a lot of his shells will be lost off the edge of the map.Ansd when there is a pool or a river near the deploy zone it can give you the same advantage. Shells landing in the water have no impact damage. - When you have a small deploy zone far from the edge, try to place your troops in spots which give some protection. Houses, hedges and trenches, even under a tank. It is best to avoid the use of open topped vehicles in these situations. They can be easily mortared down like this. - It is best to place your tanks in "defend" mode. This way they will be ready to fire when an enemy unit is spotted. I always place the other units (infantry, guns, cars and mortar) in "ambush". Like this they don't reveal themselves to soon, and they are not so prone to mortar shells. - Always try to have a command team near the other troops. Theyn really improve each unit's fighting effectiveness and morale. Very important with guns, AT teams and mortar teams! - When you have a lot of squads with a rank5 leader, it is possible to play with less command teams. - Don't hide infantry in buildings, hide tem behind or at the back wall of a building. This way they are only spotted when the enemy is in the building, and the enemy can be destroyed more easily. When they rush in to take position in the building, the enemy will not fire unless they have smg's. And the opponent usually can't give suppressive fire on your men. Tanks in "defend", other troops in "ambush". Command team nearby, infantry at the back wall of the buildings. |
| Option Settings: - You need to enable the "Team data" - "Inset map" - and the "Soldier monitor". You'll need all the info you can get. - I always play with "Remove Trees" on. It will make all the teams more visible to the player.Can be important to spot that enemy tank in the "Orchard". Can you see the Stuart? There he is: |
| - Now for the "Status Indicators". I like to put the "Soldier outlines" on Cover. Can't get that info anywhere else. And you certainly need that for deploying your troops. For the "Team icons" i choose Morale. This way I can tell very rapidly which teams are going to break and thus need some support. ________________________________________________________________________________ Selecting your BG: - First of all, try to pick the best teams. You can do this by clicking the squads in and out the roster until you've got the best. There are two different things you can go for: experience and rank. Experience is showed by the colour every squad has. Red is the lowest - Orange - Yellow - Green is the best. For the rank you need the ranking mod or you can look at the rank on the uniform of each squadleader (but that's very difficult). |
| I'm still testing what is best, experience or rank. In my opinion, for tanks, you have to go for rank. Most of the tanks in GJS always have the same exp. colour. Is it all of the time? I click in and out until I have a green5 rank. Those tanks seem to shoot faster and better, even have better armour, but I could be entirely wrong. For the infantry, I really don't know yet. Is it better to have a green squad rank 4 or a yellow squad rank 5. Usually i go for rank. Wruff and a few others talked about it in our forum (members only, Strat/maps/reports, basic CC tactics), but there is no conclusion. And take a look at this: Here are 5 different Bren sections (146 Brig./ 46 th Div). The first two hane a green colour, so they are experienced. They both have a different squad leader. The other 3 have a yellow colour. And they all have different leading officers too. Now, if you look at the "morale" of all teams, lol, the worst team has the best figures! Even the "leadership" is high! And take a look at the "experience"! I don't get it? We can do only one thing, i believe, and that's test it in a battle. But maybe there is no conclusion to it? I'll check it out! |
| _________________________________________________________________________________ First orders: - Basically...run. Don't crawl to your initial deploy positions when the game starts. Your opponent will be rushing in and getting position and will quickly realize that you are busy crawling and he will rush in and take your intented positions. Thereby immediately forcing you to attack to get back what he has easily taken from you. He'll be digging in and defending while you are getting mowed down. Example of initial deploy & first orders: When rushing in to grab your first positions, stay out of your opponents LOS (line of sight) and try to avoid running through wide open spaces. Move behind buildings and hedges rather then up the middle of a road, for example. If you come under fire then find the closest cover. (from Wruff, Pzt forum) - Of course, you have to run in a meeting engagement. That is a kind of race for the best positions. However, you don't need to run from the beginning when you play Attack or Defend engagement. Running in those games means the meaningless casualties. Everything depends on the situation. There is no absolute code of act on the field. The most important is Situational Awareness. (from Bach, Pzt forum) _______________________________________________________________________________________________-- Moving: - MOVE FAST - MOVE - SNEAK: *Move fast: Units will race (or assault) to the objective. The fastest man of the group will be first in position. The group get spread out in a long line and separated. They will be very susceptible to direct and indirect fire. Pros.: 1. Gets them in position quickly 2. Units can fire while on the move (on short bound assault orders, and only units with submachine guns) Cons.: 1. Fatigued 2. Spread out 3. Commander not with entire section 4. Easily killed by direct and indirect fire 5. Slower to respond to orders 6. Easier to suppress *Move: Units will walk (patrol) into position. They will stay closer together and use formations (normally a line). But this all depends on experience and what cover is available.The moving units will be harder to hit with direct and indirect fire. And they will take cover much quicker too. They will respond to orders faster because the commander is nearby. This is the most efficient way to move! Pros.: 1.Commander is nearby 2. They stay together 3. Less fatigued 4. Harder to get suppressed 5. Units take cover quickly and begin to crawl to destination 6. Units fire on the move (only smg's) Cons.: 1.Slow to get into position *Sneak: Is the slowest and safest way to move. Indirect fire is very uneffective and direct fire is non effective at long range. Pros.: 1. Units are less detectable 2. Units can stay together in short sneak distances 3. Units move safely through minefields 4. Engineers disarm the mines as they crawl through these fields Cons.: 1.Most inefficient way to move, they get fatigued quicker than if "move fast" was used 2. Slowest way to get into position 3. Units will spread out over long sneak distances 4. Units will not always fire at enemies within range 5. Enemy units on "defend" or "ambush" will see your units before you see them 6. Crawl of death (crawling under fire, unresponsive to orders, not returning fire) - In GJS 4.3 (like in all CC series) troops moving down a slope will move faster then troops moving up a slope. In the "Port en Bessin" map there is a good example near the "to Gold Beach" VL. If you try to run, from the hedge west of it to this VL, it will take a long time to get there. Because there is a steep slope between the two points. How much faster is calculated by the game engine that modifies the movementrate by the degree of the slope. Beware for your teams will be stretched out more! |
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| Those guys will have a hard time running up that slope! |
| - There are some other things to consider when moving units: * Like the type of the terrain.Wet, mud and crop fields slow down units considerably, as well as walls and rubble. * For long distance moves take light units (recon - aufkl.) * Running through creak beds and tunnels, along hedges and hills will prvide some cover for your advancing troops. - Retreat under fire (from Wruff - Pzt forum): So you have a squad or squads on a firing line and suddenly it becomes obvious that they will be all wiped out if you don't retreat to another defensive position. What do you do, what method do you use? I often prefer popping smoke directly in front of my line (if there is time) and moving quickly to the next defensive position. Another option is sneaking back away from the line out of enemy LOS, though if incoming fire is very strong, then your squad will be ruined before they can crawl off the line. Rushing back often costs lives, but you still will have survivors to scout and delay the enemy's advance from the next defensive position. I use the "move fast" order especially if my opponent has expended his mortar supply, and particularly when i spot inbound enemy armour. Here is an example where the enemy was hammering my guys in a building. You can see the large gun hitting the position while a full squad charges in under cover of smoke with another squad in bounding over-watch.I immediately popped smoke near the road, called in the Luftwaffe (a great opportunity if you can catch an enemy squad on the move), and retreated my rifle squad across the road to another defensive position. |
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| - Some good advice to retreat your troops (from GenEraser - Pzt forum): 1. Under tank fire in houses - "move fast", since using any other command increases the risk of the tank firing another HE round. 2. Under infantry/MG fire in houses - "move" since it's secure enough to keep the guys from getting shot and fast enough to leave the area in time (besides they go hand to hand fighting with better chances if they have to). 3. Under heavy infantry fire in the open, with cover( i.e. 3 squads firing at one) - "move fast", because popping smoke would cost you more men then simply running away. Besides your men may be so suppressed they just wont trow a smoke grenade. 4. Under infantry fire in the open, with cover (i.e. 1 squad firing at one) - pop a smoke grenade, and "move fast". Secure, simple and quick. 5. Under any kind of fire in the open, without cover - "move fast" to the nearest cover, even if it means fighting hand to hand. Deploying a smoke screen by mortars is a nice idea too. Sometimes, on higher ranges i prefer to sneak away, but only if there's not to many opponents firing and there is no risk of getting HE round up your butt. Remember - always try to have at least one squad (and/or tank) providing security. Executing any of the manoeuvres I described is really easier when you have men firing at the enemy , getting him suppressed and decreasing his chaces of hitting anything. If you have mortars, use them. This is the kind of situation they come in handy. |
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