Two noob type questions

[CB13]

Just wondering if you all would mind sending some of your wisdom my way. I have two quick questions.

 

1) Is there any way to assault a city with non airborne troops if you are not in the adjacent province. For example. Say I own Enemy province 1 and 2, but not the cities. They are adjacent and I have a ground force in EP1. Is there any way I can attack the city in EP2 without wasting a turn to move the unit from EP1 to EP2?

 

2) What's a good coastal defense? I've been debating two options. Both include lot's of LDB's. Option 1 is a Inf/Static division in DD in each province. Another is to leave most province undefended, but have a good sized mobile force nearby that can get to each one in one turn. Any thoughts?

 

Thanks!

[LenLorek]

I can give you the benefit of my wisdom (such as it is).

 

1) You can only attack a City (City Assault or Siege) from the Province surrounding it, so you will have to use a turn getting your troops into the Province first. As you point out, the only exception is an Airborne Assault (or Amphibious Assault on a Port City).

 

2) There are several ways to defend a Coastal Province (and a Port City, for that matter), which I have learned from my Amphibious Assaults when playing the United States:

a ) an Amphibious Assault will only be able to send about 1.8 Divisions of Marines into the invasion, so if you have enough LDBs and/or Divisions to defend against the strongest Marines your opponent can unleash (allow for Veterans), then the assault will fail; the attacker can always keep trying, though, where each Assault whittles down your defenders ... .

b ) Any CLAB or CHAB will automatically stop any Amphibious Assault that is NOT escorted by warships.

c) Warships are very vulnerable to air attack, so Interdict the sea provinces off your coastal provinces with lots of aircraft with good Maritime values. Your opponent may protect his ships with aircraft of his own (on aircraft carriers), so you may want to assign Fighter Escorts to your anti-ship aircraft. Your opponent may also use his aircraft to strike at your airbase first, so protect those with Interceptors.

d) If you know that neither you nor your (Total) Allies will use any of the sea provinces off your Coastal Province(s), then sow them with mines. Minefields reduce over time, so keep topping them up.

e ) Supplies and replacements will be a constant problem for anyone invading across the sea, so the longer you can keep the attacker at bay, the harder it gets for him, until eventually he gives up. You can replace your supplies and losses faster than he can, so keep sending your aircraft and warships against his ships, even if your warships lose their battles. Remember what Pyrrhus said after he won one of his battles: another such victory and the war is lost.

 

I'm sure other players and ex-players can add their own advice to the above!

 

Regards,

 

Len

[CB13]

Hmm,

 

Great advice, thanks much. I'm sure it will help. One question though, as for the defending a coast. I'm more looking for some tips on how to protect a long strip of coastal provinces as opposed to a single coastal province.

[RTGRuss]

b )  Any CLAB or CHAB will automatically stop any Amphibious Assault that is NOT escorted by warships.

Well...not automatically although that is usually the case

 

If you do not have a naval escort attached to your amphibious assault force, the amphibious assault force will still proceed with its attack. Ships in the amphibious assault force will attempt to engage enemy coastal batteries to the best of their ability (and based on the tactics settings for the force) as your amphibs make their run for the beach. If your force can withstand 20 combat rounds (troops land on the 21st) then the surviving units will land marines (adjusted for losses) and the land combat portion of the attack will take over.

 

I actually saw a force of 'phibs advance through a hail of coastal battery fire for 20 rounds once - losses were relatively high but they didn't break morale and they got their marines to the beach.

 

Not exactly a recommended method though - it might work if the enemy only has a battery or two of CHAB (slow rate of fire) but a battery of CLAB will almost always turn back something like this (6 inch shellfire is deadly to the 'phibs and the rate of fire for the CLAB is a lot higher). Normally you don't see much CLAB since the preferred tactic is to silence/destroy the batteries with gunfire from beyond 20,000 yards but...it isn't all that uncommon

 

 

Russ

[RTGRuss]

Hmm,

 

Great advice, thanks much.  I'm sure it will help.  One question though, as for the defending a coast.  I'm more looking for some tips on how to protect a long strip of coastal provinces as opposed to a single coastal province.

IF the terrain is favorable and you can afford to tie down the mobile units then a single force of mech/armor in a centrally located city can cover a fair amount of ground with conditional 'advance-to-contact' attacks

 

Use "No" for the Merge Op so they force will stay put if no enemy territory is found on the mission route. If no enemy territory is encountered, the force will stay put and the force is not flagged as having executed a primary mission (so you can issue multiple OMG missions this way - conditional attacks that only trigger if an enemy has taken territory being covered by the missions).

 

This method works best if the terrain is favorable since that allows one force to cover more of your coast. You will be tying down moble units however and you will have to issue your conditional OMG orders every turn for them to be effective. Keep in mind that although an enemy can usually only hit the beach with 1-2 Marine Divisions that it is possible for them to reinforce that beachhead in the same turn (there are three or four possible ways to reinforce right away) so you can't assume that your counterattack will only meet 1-2 Marine Divisions and the more units you have to assign to your mobile force, the fewer you have for offensive operations elsewhere. Tradeoffs

 

Russ

[ShadowKitsune]

Hmm,

 

Great advice, thanks much. I'm sure it will help. One question though, as for the defending a coast. I'm more looking for some tips on how to protect a long strip of coastal provinces as opposed to a single coastal province.

If niether you nor your Allies will be using the coastal waterways adjacent to provinces you're trying to protect, just use the tried and true tactic of submarine fleet embedded minefields. Sow the sea region with mines and 'park' a submarine fleet there to pick off the survivors of the mines.

[the_mahdi]

Piling up a mass of LDBs along your coastline can be powerfully expensive after a while. What I've found effective is to have a thin sprinkling of LDBs a couple of provinces in from your coast. It doesn't cost much, and doesn't stop much, but means any invading force is confined to single province jumps per turn - so they're tied down and you can wipe them out with a mobile army that you're keeping in the background.

 

Depends on the terrain of course - if you have mountains in the area then you should have an air force at hand to give the invaders a good hiding while your army gets into position. I'd also make sure you CLAB and CHAB on any provinces/cities you particularly care about.

 

But the thing is that an invasion is not necessarily a bad thing. The odds, if you are prepared, are very much on your side. And it's great fun piling them back into the sea, sinking their ships etc.

[CB13]

Hey, new newb question. I've seen this after a Scuttle Ship order.

 

"A scrap order was cancelled due to an illegal location or it would reduce the fleet carrying capacity below minimums while in port"

 

What would cause that? A ship still with supplies on it?

[nfbeerse]

Hello CB13,

 

When a fleet is in a port, it has the chance to unload its supplies to that port. If you scrap one or more ships, a test is done. The test is that when the supplies on the fleet are greater than the supplies the fleet can hold, the scrap order is cancelled.

Because you were in a port you should have unloaded your fleet first.

When a fleet is at sea and the SS order is given, this check does not apply.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Norbert