ShermansWar
09-10-2005, 01:35 AM
Author Topic: Tactics:Lines Of Sight
shermanswar
Officer
To kill an enemy tank you must see it, so we need a line of sight to target.MM says a good LOS is one that an AI would like, about 30 degrees wide, where you are not exposed to flank shots.Scud says that a good line of sight will spot the tanks when their ass or flanks are exposed.These are both true.A good LOS will show up on the map as mostly white,at least in the areas that cover the avenue of approach we guarding. These are nice for the postings of individual tanks.These types of BPs are not always possible. We may have an open map, or one where we must face the enemy head on.It is important to have a line of sight covering the enemies avenue of approach to our positions and the objective, particularly on defense.
When we look at a map, we should try to identify the main avenues of approach, then choose BPs which cover a good portion of the AoA(avenues of approach) with our Lines of Sight.We do this by looking at a map, if we know where the enemy deploys; we know where he starts from, we know his objective sometimes, and then we can look and seen the natural routes that have the least physical obstacles for him while at the same time providing the most cover. a river valley is a good example, stream banks,gulleys, between ridges, and as always, map edges, as the enemy will always try to flank.
To find a good BP you put the cursor for the LOS tool in the middle of these avenues of approach, and see where , tracing backwards, you can find a good BP, preferably one close to a good hide spot, so when you get a contact,Your tank, which you put in the hide spot, has to advance a very short distance to the Firing BP.So what i am saying is, in the future , sometimes when makin a plan is good to have a BP with 2 parts, one where we are in a hide, and a few yards away, a firing position.set hold tactics for the hide spot, and preplan a short route to the firing spot,so when you get a contact, you only have to hit proceed to get it forward and firing.
A good firing position has a long LOS covering the avenue of approach we wish to cover, or it can be short, but very broad, covering a wide swath of the area we know he must cross. It should have its flanks covered from the enemy, so the enemy has no LOS at it from the sides, as MM said.Besides finding BPs with good LOS covering approaches to objective, we may wanna set up BPs that have a good los covering the approaches to our firing BPs, so that when he attacks our BPs we can defend them. This is a type of secondary defensive Bp with good LOS that covers the approaches to the primary BP which is covering the main avenues of approach.Sometimes a cunning enemy will not take the obvious AoA, he will find an indirect route, through more difficult terrain in an attempt to acheive suprise, and also to avoid our main defenses.If we can identify any of these routes, we may want to see if we can pick a BP with a very narrow los that covers an area of this indirect route that we think he must cross, one where our flanks are secure, this is called a keyhole shot, one where the shot will target most likely his rear or flank.
Some BPs have an LOS that absolutely dominates the avenues of approach, a BP where the lines of sight restrict the enemies movement, thus forcing him to attack said BP, and explaining the need for BPs that cover the approaches to our other BPs, the ones with the dominant lines of sight.Besides simply being a firing posistion, a good BP will RESTRICT enemy MOBILITY by DENYING him ACCESS to avenues of approach, objectives,AND our own firing BPs by having a dominant line of sight.[We can use this idea to help channelize the enemy into a kill zone. A kill zone is an area of the map that we have channelized the enemy into, and then we haveBPs set up with good lines of sight covering this area from multiple directions.] A good BP with a dominant LOS forces the enemy to attack it, so we can also , to an extent, predict enemy movement, not just against objectives, but against our BPs.
This puts us in a position of setting up additional ambush BPs around our other BPs, ones we know he must assault, cause if he dont he is denied mobility, and if you can deny the enemy mobility, your battle is half won. Having denied him mobility ,all you need to do is get intel on his locations and bring fires on them, either arty or direct fires .
The object is to construct a trap, to put the enemy on the horns of a dilemna, offering him no good options, only bad choices.That was the plan on a strategic , not tactical level, for saturdays RTW match.He either stayed in his Pos, thus letting us control map, or he left his pos and advanced over ground we had covered with LOS from our BPs. This is an example of putting the enemy on the horns of the dillemna. Our plans must always strive to create the dillemna for the enemy.When we make our battle plan, we must anticipate how the enemy will react to having a route closed off by the existence of our dominant lines of sight. Then we set traps, trying to engineer situations where he will have an exposed flank we can fire on. We can try to divide his fires, weakening his ability to acheive fire superiority, which is what things come down to in a brawl.That is to say, if you can attack him from one direction, while he is fixed in position from fires from another direction(from our base of fire), we have acheived an advantage, as the enemy cant be on both sides of a ridge at the same time,he will be exposed somewhere,and someone from either the maneuver or assault element will have a shot, for instance.( again, the dilemna).
A good basic attack is the single envelopment.It consists of 2 elements , the base of fire element, and the maneuver element. It can be done with a section, a platoon, a company, or 2 companies.It can have single envelopment attacks within a larger single envelopment. In a single envelopment,you set up a base of fire to distract the enemy from the manuevers your enveloping maneuver element is executing, and the base of fire also serves to fix the enemy in position.The enveloping element tries to approach unseen and undetected.Either the base of fire element or the manuever elelement will have an LOS to enemy units if you attack from a different direction your base of fire is firing from.In a single envelopment attack, one element of our force sets up a BP with an LOS to target area,( the base of fire element) and we fix the enemy in position by this means,because if he leaves his BP or maneuvers within it we spot him and destroy him. But the real reason for the base of fire is to fix him in position, to pin him down, while the maneuver element advances againt him. When maneuver element arrives at the objective, (hopefully acheiving suprise by using an indirect route),he assaults enemy at point blank range, assaulting through the objective and setting up a defensive perimeter as the base of fire elememnt catches up, then continues the advance, becoming the maneuver elelment, the elements switching roles at that time.We repeat the process till we wipe him out.
shermanswar
Officer
To kill an enemy tank you must see it, so we need a line of sight to target.MM says a good LOS is one that an AI would like, about 30 degrees wide, where you are not exposed to flank shots.Scud says that a good line of sight will spot the tanks when their ass or flanks are exposed.These are both true.A good LOS will show up on the map as mostly white,at least in the areas that cover the avenue of approach we guarding. These are nice for the postings of individual tanks.These types of BPs are not always possible. We may have an open map, or one where we must face the enemy head on.It is important to have a line of sight covering the enemies avenue of approach to our positions and the objective, particularly on defense.
When we look at a map, we should try to identify the main avenues of approach, then choose BPs which cover a good portion of the AoA(avenues of approach) with our Lines of Sight.We do this by looking at a map, if we know where the enemy deploys; we know where he starts from, we know his objective sometimes, and then we can look and seen the natural routes that have the least physical obstacles for him while at the same time providing the most cover. a river valley is a good example, stream banks,gulleys, between ridges, and as always, map edges, as the enemy will always try to flank.
To find a good BP you put the cursor for the LOS tool in the middle of these avenues of approach, and see where , tracing backwards, you can find a good BP, preferably one close to a good hide spot, so when you get a contact,Your tank, which you put in the hide spot, has to advance a very short distance to the Firing BP.So what i am saying is, in the future , sometimes when makin a plan is good to have a BP with 2 parts, one where we are in a hide, and a few yards away, a firing position.set hold tactics for the hide spot, and preplan a short route to the firing spot,so when you get a contact, you only have to hit proceed to get it forward and firing.
A good firing position has a long LOS covering the avenue of approach we wish to cover, or it can be short, but very broad, covering a wide swath of the area we know he must cross. It should have its flanks covered from the enemy, so the enemy has no LOS at it from the sides, as MM said.Besides finding BPs with good LOS covering approaches to objective, we may wanna set up BPs that have a good los covering the approaches to our firing BPs, so that when he attacks our BPs we can defend them. This is a type of secondary defensive Bp with good LOS that covers the approaches to the primary BP which is covering the main avenues of approach.Sometimes a cunning enemy will not take the obvious AoA, he will find an indirect route, through more difficult terrain in an attempt to acheive suprise, and also to avoid our main defenses.If we can identify any of these routes, we may want to see if we can pick a BP with a very narrow los that covers an area of this indirect route that we think he must cross, one where our flanks are secure, this is called a keyhole shot, one where the shot will target most likely his rear or flank.
Some BPs have an LOS that absolutely dominates the avenues of approach, a BP where the lines of sight restrict the enemies movement, thus forcing him to attack said BP, and explaining the need for BPs that cover the approaches to our other BPs, the ones with the dominant lines of sight.Besides simply being a firing posistion, a good BP will RESTRICT enemy MOBILITY by DENYING him ACCESS to avenues of approach, objectives,AND our own firing BPs by having a dominant line of sight.[We can use this idea to help channelize the enemy into a kill zone. A kill zone is an area of the map that we have channelized the enemy into, and then we haveBPs set up with good lines of sight covering this area from multiple directions.] A good BP with a dominant LOS forces the enemy to attack it, so we can also , to an extent, predict enemy movement, not just against objectives, but against our BPs.
This puts us in a position of setting up additional ambush BPs around our other BPs, ones we know he must assault, cause if he dont he is denied mobility, and if you can deny the enemy mobility, your battle is half won. Having denied him mobility ,all you need to do is get intel on his locations and bring fires on them, either arty or direct fires .
The object is to construct a trap, to put the enemy on the horns of a dilemna, offering him no good options, only bad choices.That was the plan on a strategic , not tactical level, for saturdays RTW match.He either stayed in his Pos, thus letting us control map, or he left his pos and advanced over ground we had covered with LOS from our BPs. This is an example of putting the enemy on the horns of the dillemna. Our plans must always strive to create the dillemna for the enemy.When we make our battle plan, we must anticipate how the enemy will react to having a route closed off by the existence of our dominant lines of sight. Then we set traps, trying to engineer situations where he will have an exposed flank we can fire on. We can try to divide his fires, weakening his ability to acheive fire superiority, which is what things come down to in a brawl.That is to say, if you can attack him from one direction, while he is fixed in position from fires from another direction(from our base of fire), we have acheived an advantage, as the enemy cant be on both sides of a ridge at the same time,he will be exposed somewhere,and someone from either the maneuver or assault element will have a shot, for instance.( again, the dilemna).
A good basic attack is the single envelopment.It consists of 2 elements , the base of fire element, and the maneuver element. It can be done with a section, a platoon, a company, or 2 companies.It can have single envelopment attacks within a larger single envelopment. In a single envelopment,you set up a base of fire to distract the enemy from the manuevers your enveloping maneuver element is executing, and the base of fire also serves to fix the enemy in position.The enveloping element tries to approach unseen and undetected.Either the base of fire element or the manuever elelement will have an LOS to enemy units if you attack from a different direction your base of fire is firing from.In a single envelopment attack, one element of our force sets up a BP with an LOS to target area,( the base of fire element) and we fix the enemy in position by this means,because if he leaves his BP or maneuvers within it we spot him and destroy him. But the real reason for the base of fire is to fix him in position, to pin him down, while the maneuver element advances againt him. When maneuver element arrives at the objective, (hopefully acheiving suprise by using an indirect route),he assaults enemy at point blank range, assaulting through the objective and setting up a defensive perimeter as the base of fire elememnt catches up, then continues the advance, becoming the maneuver elelment, the elements switching roles at that time.We repeat the process till we wipe him out.