Struggling with ATF

[switch_back]

I am having a fair bit of trouble in scenarios in that im finding difficulty getting units under my command to activley open fire of positions which I presume that they can see, insted they keep trundling forwards getting shot at. On occasions I have had to be litteraly on top of an enemy unit for my tanks to open fire.

The hold fire command is off and some units are set to engage on contact, I think it may be an LOS issue, but I cant be sure, im really struggling to get to grips with the LOS fan tool.

Can anybody suggest any ideas, for me to make it easier for myself to ensure a proper engagement?

Thanks :D

[CPangracs]

I am having a fair bit of trouble in scenarios in that im finding difficulty getting units under my command to activley open fire of positions which I presume that they can see, insted they keep trundling forwards getting shot at. On occasions I have had to be litteraly on top of an enemy unit for my tanks to open fire.

The hold fire command is off and some units are set to engage on contact, I think it may be an LOS issue, but I cant be sure, im really struggling to get to grips with the LOS fan tool.

Can anybody suggest any ideas, for me to make it easier for myself to ensure a proper engagement?

Thanks :D
LOS is definitely a consideration. Also, keep in mind that defilade positions and units in holes will decrease weapons effectiveness and visibility. You should use your artillery on dug-in positions to at least suppress the bad guy until you can get into position to destroy them.

[KG_Norad]

I have not had much issue with tanks or afv's not firing. Dismounts on the other hand are very hard to get in the fight because the take so long to move from place to place. Once in a while I have come across seemingly indestructible units that I have surrounded with 5 or 6 vehicles and dismounts, emptied all weapons on and still have not destroyed. See my TDMS Archangel AAR. Generally this is not an issue.

ATF in my experience HEAVILY favors stationary defending troops whether they are in holes or not. There are 2 scenarios that demonstrate this in particularly. One is a Fulda Gap Scenario and one is I think NTC Bulldog Defense or something like that (I am at work and can't think of the names) but BLUEFOR is defending in these scenarios and OPFOR runs lemming like into your zones of fire to their annihialation. You really don't even need arty support in these missions.

The flipside of this is the scenarios where you have to attack opfor are really hard, and I like that. Maybe the upcoming scenario designs will find a way to mitigate this somewhat.

[switch_back]

I think perhaps I should pay some more attention into organising artillery strikes, that is a weakpoint of mine, I do view my manuever tactics in wargames as quite good, but it is using elements like artillery and air support that causes me difficulty, I think I am also having trouble with timing things properly.

On your point NORAD I definatley think that things are quite bias to the defense, I have had less trouble in a defensive position heh heh, but still like you say its more of a challenge to attack, its just I cant seem to do it, I have lost every attack scenario in ATF several times, I keep getting mauled to death and my tanks and IFV's rarely get a shot off before they are smashed.

[KG_Norad]

That is true, It happens to alot of us. Look at CPT Proctors DV Attack AAR. He got mauled. However there is usually a chink in the armor of the defensive line. Kbluck takes advantage of this in his DV Attack AAR. However I have come to realize that while victory is possible it almost always comes at a heavy price that realisticly would not be tolarated.

I have the feeling that the hit/kill ratio is slightly skewed, I am not a mathematician however and will not bother with an indepth analisys.;) This what I meant though about this game when I said coordination is an art and is a goal unto itself. You have the tools to mitigate the above circumstances enough to win. But like I said winning at ATF is not necessarily like "winning" other games.:D I think it took Scully like 20 tries to win Death Valley, and even then it was onlt after being fueled by a visit from his relatives;) !

[switch_back]

Well with that in mind ill keep plugging away, rest assured ill probably post a thread letting everyone know how happy I am to have beaten an ATF attack scenario for the first time.

It certainly shows the variation in skills you need for different wargames, ive taken to POAII like a duck to water and I am pulling off some well co-ordinated attacks and well thought out strategies which pulverises the defence 9/10 times. Whereas im finding ATF a real battle to win an attack scenario, which can be frustrating, but the reward of the victory will be quite warming to me I assure you :D

[Scully]

Well with that in mind ill keep plugging away, rest assured ill probably post a thread letting everyone know how happy I am to have beaten an ATF attack scenario for the first time.

It certainly shows the variation in skills you need for different wargames, ive taken to POAII like a duck to water and I am pulling off some well co-ordinated attacks and well thought out strategies which pulverises the defence 9/10 times. Whereas im finding ATF a real battle to win an attack scenario, which can be frustrating, but the reward of the victory will be quite warming to me I assure you :D

Hey Switch Back,

I, along with many others, have felt the pain of learning to win attack scenarios. And when I finally did win, it was an unbelievable feeling.

A few points I would make:
1. Make sure you play the update scenarios by KB with the updated database. The infantry model is much more accurate and makes dismounts much more effective.
2. Get a full understanding of all the weapons available to you. I'm still working through this, but once I started gaining a better knowledge of what weapons do what, I started using them more effectively.
3. A real good plan is critical, at least for me it was. At first, I would just write down a couple of quick notes for a plan and have a go. Now I do a little bit more planning (see Capt. Proctor's, KBlucks, and DP's aar's for some good lessons) and it pays off.
4. Take your time when playing the game. I would pause often to consider different options when things weren't playing out like I expected. In the beginning, I would often save before heading into a critical point in the game so I could go back and try different options if I screwed it up.
5. Once I realized the usefullness of the Suppress order for all my units, life got better. You can suppress units that are still unknown while moving your troops into better position to fire. You can do this with artillery as Curt mentioned or individual units with direct fire. When you aren't shooting at a unit that's right in front of you and you need to move, try suppression with a portion of your force while moving the rest.
5. I'm still not very good at attacks, so be patient. It's going to take some time. But it is very rewarding.

I hope my rambling here helps a little bit.

Take care,
Brian

[switch_back]

Thats just what I wanted to hear, thanks alot Brian, im going to give it a go, cant wait to win someday haha!! no rambling involved its just as detailed an explaination as I needed.

Thanks to all you guys for your help, the response has been quick and very helpful!!!! :D

[KG_Norad]

Excellent answer Scully! That was exactly what I was trying to get at amidst all my "rambling"!;)

Like every other Great Leader in the world, I am the one with the title and the inordinate amount of Power, and Scully my right hand man, has the brains, and is the articulate one!;) :p :D

[kbluck]

Things are indeed biased to the defense. In fact, in some ways, I think not biased enough. For example, I think vehicles in holes and on "hold fire" should be almost impossible to detect farther than 1000 meters or so, since this is supposed to represent them lurking in "hide positions" with nothing exposed above the surface of the ground except the commander's head and his binoculars. Dismounts in the same situation should be practically invisible until you literally trip over them.

"Hold fire" is supposed to reduce visibility in this way, but in my experience it actually doesn't to any significant degree. The visibility difference between "hold fire" and not seems to be fairly trivial in my experience. Similarly, units are supposed to have reduced detection capabilities to side and rear. I haven't found any significant difference there, either.

At any rate, an attacking force running directly into a kill sack against a defending force that is ready and unsuppressed is going to be exterminated, unless they literally provide more targets than the defenders have ammunition. That part is entirely realistic.

The trick on the attack is to adopt at least one of two, not mutually exclusive strategies:

1. Avoid the attacker's weapon envelopes. If you don't give them the chance to take effective shots at you, obviously your chances of survival rise immeasurably. This is the method I used in my DV Attack AAR. The lack of friendly casualties was of course somewhat a matter of luck, but not outlandishly so; notice how the enemy simply never got any really good shots at me. My forces spent most of their time completely out of LOS or out of range. The very few times the enemy did get a chance to shoot, it was low odds --- either a frontal shot against an M1, or small arms against infantry, and never more than a couple of those even so. Conversely, when I shot the enemy it was generally with multiple weapons with high odds of success, so they typically died rather quickly. In this way I repeatedly achieved local firepower superiority ratios > 10-1, even though in overall superiority I was maybe 2-1.

2. Degrade the enemy's ability to engage. Usually, this involves some combination of destruction, suppression and obscuration. You destroy key systems or positions, suppress others that are an immediate threat, and obscure everything else's ability to see you. When implemented flawlessly, this can work well; but it is very difficult to coordinate fully, and if you miss something, you'll pay dearly for it. This was CPT Proctor's strategy on his DV AAR, and as we can see it didn't quite come together for him. As he pointed out himself, he picked the wrong spot for his breach, well covered by practically everything the enemy had and giving him no outlet except into yet more enemy; he simply didn't have enough firepower and obscuration available to degrade the enemy's ability to engage sufficiently to push his force through. Even assuming the hill I used was impassable and I had to go on the valley floor, it would have been better to hit the south side, since during the breach the hill would still mask enemies in the objective proper to be dealt with later, and the other enemies would at least be firing at your front rather than your flank. The infantry strongpoint should still be reduced first, of course, but all things considered I think that remains a more palatable option.

The second method is clearly more difficult to bring together successfully, although sometimes it is the only alternative if the enemy has positioned itself well. This is why the enemy usually fares so badly in the "enemy attack" scenarios where they don't have a simply overwhelming numbers advantage; it is very difficult to "program" the OPFOR to do a good job of suppression on the attack, mainly due to the lack of preplanned "rolling" fire missions and that damnable suppression radius. Also, there is a curious disparity between the suppression effects of direct fire vs. indirect fire. Artillery can suppress enemy units for minutes at a time, but direct fire rarely more than a few seconds. Small arms suppression seems almost pointless, as in practice it rarely lasts long enough to actually prevent the enemy from returning fire essentially unimpeded.

Where the OPFOR does succeed on the attack, it is generally because the player set up in a way that gives them the opportunity to come down a blind avenue of approach.

--- Kevin

[Pat Proctor]

Swtich,

To hit on your original question, I would refer you to the methods used in the DV Attack AAR.

It is suicide to attack a dug-in enemy without some form of suppression. Adding obscuration is even better. In the Army, the operating acronym is SOSR-A (Suppress, Obscure, Secure, Reduce, Assault). It illustrates that before you attack a position, you must suppress the enemy and obscure his ability to observe and place direct fire on you.

The DV Attack AAR shows how to use both direct and indirect fire to do this.

[RobAPol]

I have the feeling that the hit/kill ratio is slightly skewed, I am not a mathematician however and will not bother with an indepth analisys.;) !

I agree! I attacked 1 dug in BMP2 with 4 M1 tanks at an initial range of 1km, but closed down the range to around 100yds. After lots of exchange of fire, the first casualty? A M1 destroyed, through it's frontal armour with a BMP autocannon?!!! :nuts:

All my 120mm rounds failed to do anything!

[Scully]

Hey Switchback,

How's it coming? Are you picking things up yet? Is there anything else you need help with?

Take care,
Brian

[switch_back]

Its coming along quite well, I did quite well on the IRAQ Basra scenario, I managed to smash a hole in the left flank with artillery and heavy air attacks from A10's although things fell apart when I got close to the objective and my forces got annihalated by dug in vehicles and AT-5's, something I failed to forsee, the only problem is that, I can now quite easily get to this point and things fall apart, im so close to victory but I just cant quite crack it!!!!

I would like to know however how by looking at the map can I gauge where line of site is blocked and defilade is provided, it all looks flat, obviously in this IRAQ map there are no contour lines, it seems like there is nowhere to hide, but its so hard to find the enemy, if my recon vehicles can see them why cant my tanks recieve the information that they are seeing and use it to pinpoint a target? because surely if the recon vehicles can see the target then tanks should be able to hit it? :(

I cant believe how close I am to cracking an attack scenario, I just need that last push to go without a hithc, but I cant seem to do it!!!!

[Pat Proctor]

The terrain in this scenario is very deceptive. The contour lines are at 10m intervals, but the elevation changes on the ground are more subtle than this. Using LOS Fan from the View menu, the toolbar, or a unit's right-click menu, will allow you to gauge what a unit can see from its location. It may, well be that your tanks are in a spot where their LOS is blocked. Also remember that your recon assets have much better optics, which means they can identify targets at a much greater range than tanks.

Use artillery and mortar HE to suppress vehicle positions until you get close enough to shoot the vehicles. Also, approach vehicle positions from the rear. Units can not see as well or as far to their rear, which will give you the advantage.

[switch_back]

Thats one of the main problems im having in ATF is the LOS fan tool, I just cant get to grips with it, I dont understand whether its only where the yellow actually exsists within the fan or it only shows LOS in certain directions around the fan?! I know I have put that strange, but I couldnt think of any other way of putting it. :rolleyes:

Thanks for the input Pat :D

[Pat Proctor]

The spots with no yellow lines are "dead space" where the unit has no visibility. The LOS fan "illuminates" the visible ground around the unit.

[switch_back]

Right thats a bit clearer now, I can still see myself having a bit of trouble, everyone says the tool is so easy to use, I just cant understand how I am so in-capable of using it. I might be because im so used to using draggable lines, lists of what the unit can see, and colour fill area LOS.

I'll keep sluggin on :D