Tactics site updated: Urban offence techniques

[DviddLeff]

https://sites.google.com/site/planetsidetactics/offence


Urban offence

When the fight reaches built up areas such as towns or bases commanders have several routes to success. In the example battle zone found in the Strategy overview Dahaka could be the mission target; to capture it a commander must decide which method to use.



Each method has advantages and disadvantages, some will be slower yet safer, others faster yet more reckless; a good commander must evaluate the troops he has and those he is facing before making a decision.

Envelopment: The urban area is isolated by surrounding it with friendly forces to prevent support reaching the area. This can take time to make the envelopment secure and will also take a large number of attacking troops to make sure that each area is secure. It will however decrease the capture time of the main base, and delay any reinforcements the enemy may try to call in.



Turning movement: Used to capture key routes leading toward the area to deny easy resupply and allow ease of assault. This was often seen in the original game as base towers were captured before the main base was assaulted as they provided the attacker with a secure spawn point in case of a spirited defence from the facility. Capturing the tower would take this alternate spawn point from the defender, restricting their options for organised counter offensives.



Infiltration: Units move into key areas using stealthy means avoid raising the alarm until they are ready for a coordinated strike. Depending on the skill of the infiltrators and the awareness of defenders they may be able to cripple equipment and distract defenders allowing for a small attacking force to overrun the facility. Infiltration can take time however and if caught the assault can be thwarted.



Penetration: Forces are focused on a key area or areas, ideally attacking from multiple directions simultaneously. Once captured exploitation must be made immediately otherwise the defenders can stall the attack as they fall back to strong points. Penetration assaults should use combined arms; infantry of various types supported with both armour and aircraft to punch a way into the facility.



Frontal attack: Only effective when the attacker clearly has the advantage as this will result in the most loss of troops. The assault force moves directly to the enemy position fire teams and squads supporting each other as they advance.

[acosmo]

cool pics breh, but, in the words of mike tyson, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face."

[Hmr85]

Looks pretty cool man.

[Hamma]

[ThirdCross]

You might be putting to much confidence in the zergs ability to be managed. Then again you never know with this new mission system.

[Vash02]

The zerg can be the distraction while the outfits get shit done.

[DviddLeff]

Originally Posted by ThirdCross

You might be putting to much confidence in the zergs ability to be managed. Then again you never know with this new mission system.

Originally Posted by Vash02

The zerg can be the distraction while the outfits get shit done.

That's it exactly; mission system will help Zerg herd but as with PS it will be the outfits that coordinate and with 4 squads per platoon it's going to be easier to do.

[ringring]

Warrior Nation used to have some good documents on squad tactics as I recall. And I think they'd still be relevant for ps2.

[Coreldan]

On a somewhat unrelated note, I always imagined that the hexes will be much bigger than those

[DviddLeff]

The devs have said bases will influence 6-7 hexes; so I adjusted that to PS bases. So yes they will be somewhat bigger in PS2.

[Redshift]

This is the only tactic i expect to see often :P

[ShockFC]

This is terribly idealistic, and none of these tactics would ever work. You need to stop thinking in terms of "commanders" and "troops." Leadership and commanding isn't some glorified story line you saw in a movie, people are dynamic, you are dealing with people. So many fail to understand that.

"a great commander will be respected and his troops will have to be analyzed, blah blah blah..." You're kidding me with that right?

Also, really? Tactics for a game that hasn't come out yet? There hasn't even been a chance to establish ANY sort of reasonable metagame - due to it being impossible.

These forums I swear.

[Vash02]

Stop whining.

[DviddLeff]

Originally Posted by ShockFC

This is terribly idealistic, and none of these tactics would ever work.

Most of them are done anyway, but you don't think of them as discrete tactics when you say "capture the base tower" and its referred to in the guide as a turning movement.

Originally Posted by ShockFC

You need to stop thinking in terms of "commanders" and "troops." Leadership and commanding isn't some glorified story line you saw in a movie, people are dynamic, you are dealing with people. So many fail to understand that.

With a smaller group its easy to quickly chat and decide the next thing to do, but when you have a full platoon someone has to call the shots; where to go, how to do it, etc. And you always get natural leaders and those who just want to kick back and let someone else make the decisions.

Originally Posted by ShockFC

"a great commander will be respected and his troops will have to be analyzed, blah blah blah..." You're kidding me with that right?

Not that I said it but respected yes, sure, otherwise people will not follow their orders/missions and leave an outfit for another with leaders that they do respect.

Evaluate troops; a good commander should know the skills of his troops; even after 5 years I know that one of my guys will take down almost anyone using only a Pulsar, while another is a fantastic cloaker able to get into nearly any base. I wouldn't try an air assault with a squad of inept pilots, but I would take a bunch of Skyguards if I knew an enemy air cav outfit was in the area. That is what I mean by evaluating the troops.