On attack, there are a couple of basic deployment methods. First, determine whether your forces are capable of operating in groups. Ask the question of yourself: Can my forces operate in cohesive groups each with a specific objective? Each group should have a degree of firepower and mobility related to its mission. Some groups you may wish to give multiple missions or hold in reserve to exploit weaknesses in the enemy defenses. Generally, only higher morale players with good equipment can form tactical groups in this manner. If our core force is inexperienced, and are playing with lesser quality equipment and vehicles, you may not be able to form cohesive attacking groups because our troops will become suppressed and route too easily. In such a case it is best to gather your force together in one big group and try to take each objective one by one.
Next, you need to figure out how to approach the task of taking the objectives. Should you simply attack them directly, flank them, or, instead, concentrate on killing enemy units and hope that this causes his force morale to break? Direct lines of approach are surefire ways of detecting the enemy, which is good if you are confident that your forces will prevail in a fire fight. Indirect lines of approach are good if your object is to minimize casualties and have plenty of time to accomplish the mission (relatively speaking). An indirect approach will not work, in most cases, if the map terrain is predominately flat and featureless. The enemy will see you coming and start causing losses at a distance. However, you may want to nevertheless position your forces so that you come in range of as few defenders as necessary to take the objective.
Initial placement of forces on attack consists primarily of organizing the attack forces into groups and putting them in places that are good starting points for the intended line of march, keeping all the above factors in mind. In some cases, you will be fortunate to have a combination of terrain features on your side of the map and visibility which allow you an excellent view of the possible enemy positions before you even move into no man's land. In this case, you may want to place some heavy guns (if you have them) or your command unit at this point, so that you can take advantage of the squads commander's experience.
A typical attack group is a combined arms killing machine. First, each group should have someone doing reconnaissance. There may be only one dedicated reconnaissance force available to do this for all the groups, but in some cases you may want to provide this capability to the individual attack group. If you have armor, place your highest frontal armor rated armored units ahead of the weaker units, unless those weaker units are low value reconnaissance units. The enemy will tend to fire at the nearest high value unit it can, and there is no sense in letting this be one of your weakly armored albeit high-value tanks. Some groups can get away with having very little or no infantry in some of the attack groups. The Germans in particular excelled in this area. However, if your armor is to be moving around, even in open terrain, where enemy infantry are as numerous as ants, this can be very dangerous! Here it might be a good idea to dismount some of your infantry from their intrinsic carriers and mount them directly on the tanks. Beware, however, if the tank comes under fire and a hit is scored -- it may not damage the tank but the riders can lose men and the situation may become slightly less comfortable. Mounting your infantry on tanks is a good way to protect them from infantry assaults. However, it is not a sure fire guarantee of protection. If a tank comes under assault from two different enemy units, the riders will absorb the first assault by taking casualties. The second assault can damage the tank.
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