How to manage turns using the Attack planner?

[Drakken]

Okey, now I am lost.

Following my reading of Curtis Lemay's AARs on Matrix forums and General Staff's on this forum, I began an Okinawa campaign as Americans to practice using the Attack Planner to better manage my turns.

However, even though I make sure that, for each attack, only one square appears on the upper-right corner of the Attack planner, I end up using all my turn on a single attack phase! WTH?! I know that battles can last longer than planned, but still, I don't get it! :mad:

- Usually, I set my Loss Tolerance to "Limit Losses." Should I put it to "Minimize losses" instead?

- In Okinawa, the Americans have a LOT of support artillery and bombers for combat support. Could they make the battles last longer if they are not on "Minimize Losses"?

- I only use Direct artillery support when the Japanese stacks are in the red, the rest of the time I leave all my artillery on indirect support.

- Finally, sometimes in the support zone some units (usually HQ) have a big red X barring them. However, when I click on them for removal it significantly increase the planned attack phase duration. Is it because they add active units for support?

Please, enlighten me. I feel really lost here and I want to know what I do wrong (or simply don't do) here.

Thanks!

[Goliath]

Being a TOAW-beginner myself, I know there are others more apt at answering this. Anyway, I had a look at the particular scenario, and experienced the same behaviour as you did. I also found a clue in the scenario briefing, namely that force proficiencies intentionally have been set low in order to provoke exactly this behaviour: after each round of battle, a force proficiency check is made. If you fail, the turn will end. The reason for the low setting in the particlular scenario was to make preparatory artillery softenings less effective, which apparently it was historically against the well-entrenched japanese.

[Telumar]

Okey, now I am lost.

Following my reading of Curtis Lemay's AARs on Matrix forums and General Staff's on this forum, I began an Okinawa campaign as Americans to practice using the Attack Planner to better manage my turns.

However, even though I make sure that, for each attack, only one square appears on the upper-right corner of the Attack planner, I end up using all my turn on a single attack phase! WTH?! I know that battles can last longer than planned, but still, I don't get it! :mad:

As Goliath said. Either a failed force proficiency check and/or one particular battle burned the entire turn. Watch out for 'continue attack' messages in the detailed combat report.

- Usually, I set my Loss Tolerance to "Limit Losses." Should I put it to "Minimize losses" instead?

Limit losses will most probably use up 2 combat rounds. If you only want to use up 1 combat round i suggest 'minimize losses'. This however doesn't prevent you from round-burning. It could also be that you achieve better results with 'limit losses' as your units on 'minimize' losses are more likely to break off before it gets painfull (for them and for the enemy).

- In Okinawa, the Americans have a LOT of support artillery and bombers for combat support. Could they make the battles last longer if they are not on "Minimize Losses"?

Nope. Only a pure bombardment (no ground forces involved) can use up more than one combat round. One round per dot, that means one round at 'minimal losses', two at 'limited' etc.

- I only use Direct artillery support when the Japanese stacks are in the red, the rest of the time I leave all my artillery on indirect support.

Direct support is more effective, but note that the artillery's (and bombers') remaining MP play a role here (see below). On indirect support it doesn't play a role wether a unit has full, half or zero MPs - it won't add to the clock..

- Finally, sometimes in the support zone some units (usually HQ) have a big red X barring them. However, when I click on them for removal it significantly increase the planned attack phase duration. Is it because they add active units for support?

The red X means a unit that can lend support but isn't in support mode yet (neither direct nor indirect). If one of these units has used up a higher percentage of its MPs than those participating in the ground attack it will add to the phase squares. You can set these units on indirect support which won't add to the phase squares.
You order an attack with a 10/10 MP ground unit. You add a 8/10 MP ground unit to the attack and should see two squares - the battle will 'eat' 20% of your round (actually it will start after 20% of your round). Now you add an artillery unit with 5/10 MPs left. now the attack will 'eat' 50% (five squares) of the turn. If you remove this artillery unit from direct support and put it into support mode (dig in, T reserve (working, but not recommended: L reserve)) the attack will be at 80% ('eating' 20%) of the turn.

Hope this helps.

[Telumar]

Direct support is more effective, but note that the artillery's (and bombers') remaining MP play a role here (see below). On indirect support it doesn't play a role wether a unit has full, half or zero MPs - it won't add to the clock..

Hmm-- maybe i should add this:

A unit on direct support will add its full attack strength to this one attack. A unit on indirect support will add half of its attack strength to each battle in range provided it passes a communication check.
Now if you have five battles, but only one battery in range it's probably best to use indirect support.
But if you have a well entrenched or fortified enemy it's better to use direct support. Artillery fire reduces the enemy's entrenchment (please don't ask for more details here ;) ), therefore direct support and having the entire battery's strength will yield better results. Your infantry will be thankfull..
Note that shell-weight (only visible in the equipment editor) plays the main role in reducing enemy entrenchment, not AP value. The higher the calibre the better - low AP values in über-heavy artillery only reflect low ROF.

[JAMiAM]

What is driving the turn burn in this scenario is the extraordinarily high attrition divider of 50. This results in losses of only 1/5 of the normal amount. This needs to be overcome by directed bombardment and overwhelming firepower being brought to bear against defending hexes. Especially, when the defenders are in fortified deployments and are using ignore loss tolerances.

Given that the the bulk of your "artillery" support consists of naval units, that they are a different icon background from your ground units, and that they are on Force level support, you're actually only going to get about half of their full strength firing at the enemy stacks, even on directed fire missions. Less than that, if you're using them in indirect mode. This affects both the overall attrition against the hex, as well as the probability that the defenders will get dug out from their fortified deployment. You really need to focus on a slow grind, with overwhelming attacks, mixed with a lot of artillery supported probing actions, and flank attacks. This is a scenario that I would definitely NOT want to use the new flanking rules on, since they make attacking a lot harder in dense situations.

You have 136 turns, so take your time, choose exposed salients, prep attack the defenders, apply the coup de grace, advance in, dig in to hold the hex against counterattacks. Rinse and repeat - hex by bloody hex.

[Bob Cross]

What is driving the turn burn in this scenario is the extraordinarily high attrition divider of 50. This results in losses of only 1/5 of the normal amount. This needs to be overcome by directed bombardment and overwhelming firepower being brought to bear against defending hexes. Especially, when the defenders are in fortified deployments and are using ignore loss tolerances.

That's correct, and also note that the American force proficiency is 60 (Japanese is 40). Those are low values that will be more likely than in most other scenarios to produce early turn endings due to force proficiency check failures.

I designed the scenario that way for a reason (and said so in the briefing): The Japanese were in cave defenses - they were almost invulnerable to bombardment. So I designed the scenario to reflect that. The normal way of doing things in TOAW - lots of preliminary attacks with little in the way of assault forces but lots of artillery support - will not work, because of the risk of early turn ending. Players, hopefully, will be forced to launch full ground assaults right from the get-go, out of fear that any prep attacks will be their last of the turn.

Sounds like it's working.

[Bob Cross]

Okey, now I am lost.

Following my reading of Curtis Lemay's AARs on Matrix forums and General Staff's on this forum, I began an Okinawa campaign as Americans to practice using the Attack Planner to better manage my turns.

You had the bad luck of picking one of the few scenarios specifically designed to thwart turn management efforts.

[El Cid]

I find that when I attack an hex with a large number of my units, the enemy can only inflict so many losses, but those are distributed among the multiple units, so it means very few losses per unit. So my units keep attacking even at minimize losses and burns up the turn.

[Drakken]

That's correct, and also note that the American force proficiency is 60 (Japanese is 40). Those are low values that will be more likely than in most other scenarios to produce early turn endings due to force proficiency check failures.

I designed the scenario that way for a reason (and said so in the briefing): The Japanese were in cave defenses - they were almost invulnerable to bombardment. So I designed the scenario to reflect that. The normal way of doing things in TOAW - lots of preliminary attacks with little in the way of assault forces but lots of artillery support - will not work, because of the risk of early turn ending. Players, hopefully, will be forced to launch full ground assaults right from the get-go, out of fear that any prep attacks will be their last of the turn.

Sounds like it's working.

Indeed, it works. I just love that scenario. :)

However, I do not understand that I am to do with reinforcements after reading the notes. Do I really have to disband all reinforcement units I receive to have them included into my replacement pools? :surprise:

[Bob Cross]

Indeed, it works. I just love that scenario. :)

Thanks for your comments.

However, I do not understand that I am to do with reinforcements after reading the notes. Do I really have to disband all reinforcement units I receive to have them included into my replacement pools? :surprise:

Sorry if the briefing was not clear about that. The American ground replacements are all contained in the units of two formations named "USMC Replacement" and "USA Replacement". The first is for the Marines and the second is for the Army. Some of the marine units arrive on the landing beaches as the shore party, the rest (and all the USA units) arrive on the islands of the Kerama-Retto. All have coastal gun icons, so they can't move. They all can serve no purpose other to be disbanded, as needed.

The Amerian player can choose to disband all, some, or none of them as he sees fit. Any disbands will register in the loss penalty until they are absorbed into combat units. So, ideally, he should tailor his disbands to match his losses, to minimize his loss penalty. In other words, if you aren't taking enough losses to absorb all the replacements in a disband, then the disbandment would just increase the loss penalty while the replacements sat in the "on hand" pile. But, if you've actually got losses to fill, then they might as well be disbanded, since it doesn't make any difference where the lost equipment is as far as the loss penalty is concerned.

Under no circumstances should you be disbanding combat unit reinforcements in this manner. The briefing comments only applied to those two replacement formations.