M4's Tactical Exercise #1

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marauder
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M4's Tactical Exercise #1

Post by marauder » Thu Sep 08, 2011 5:47 pm

Briefing
You squint under the hot mid day sun, an unusually hot day for the end of summer, shielding your eyes with your hand you look down at your watch. Ten minutes until the fight begins. You’ve gathered some of your most loyal comrades for this match, an 8 v 8 game of 1hk capture the flag. Although your team isn’t the best armed, you boast a respectable arsenal: 2 Arctic Blasts, 2 Flash Floods, a CPS 4100, CPS 2500, a Shot Blast, and an XP 310. Intelligence reports that the enemy leader carries a CPS 2100 and one of their better atheletes uses an XP 150, the rest of their arsenal remains unknown.

Image

Your battle ground is a section of a local park, 120m x 120m. Turquoise Xs mark start/refill points/locations of flags. Your team’s start point is located in grid A3, the enemy begins the battle at grid F4. The buildings are park restrooms, you are unable to shoot out of the windows. A creek divides the battlefield down the middle. Said creek is at such a width that only your best atheletes can jump across. Unless the bridgein grid C3 is used, the rest of your team will need help crossing slowly. Other noteable terrain features include forest on the N side of the battlefield, a ridge on the SW corner, a tall mound of sand in B5, and a marsh in grid D5.

Objective
Win the battle by (A) capturing the enemy’s flag and bringing it back to your base, or (B) eliminating all enemy personel.

Determine the deployment of your troops, followed by a brief battle plan. Be sure to indicate your reasoning.

I will be acting as op4 (opposition forces) and pmd my battle plan to isoaker so that you know that I'm not cheating and basing my plan off your responses here. Once we get a lot of responses I will reveal my battle plan and we can compare it to each or your plans and see what might happen!
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mr. dude
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Re: M4's Tactical Exercise #1

Post by mr. dude » Thu Sep 08, 2011 7:20 pm

Great idea, I love these topics!

Unless I'm mistaken, my deployment happens at A3? There's not much I can go over for deployment tactics if that is the case.
Anyway, in terms of weapon distribution, the player with best aim gets the 2500, the 310 FFs and ABs go to the athletes, Shot blast goes to the stealthiest, and the 4100 would go to the odd one out.
The moves will be as follows, Shot Blast and an AB hang back, staying in the woods nearest to the deployment area in A3. They pick off any infiltrators, while remaining safe in the bushes.
Meanwhile, the remaining 6 immediately run to the bridge (they deployed nearer to it, they get there first). 4 of them are to hold the bridge and make sure no opponents get on it, the remaining 2 keep on the lookout for opponents crossing the river. In terms of cover, one of the watchers takes the woods in C2 (one of the FF users), the other hangs around the C3/C4 area (the 4100 user). The 4100 user and the bridge occupants won't need permanent cover as they're far enough away to get in defensible positions if M4's evil alliance approaches. By defensible positions, I mean using the bridge for cover or any big rocks around it. The 2500 user's job is to take advantage of his range and keep the opposition as far away as possible, while the others cover fire. As a unit, their job is simply to prevent the Evil Alliance from crossing the river anywhere.

Should the Evil Alliance attempt to spread out and cross in multiple locations (with a significant chunk of their team, ie more than 3 players), then a different approach will be taken. The watchers both relocate to hold the bridge from within the woods in C3, while the 4 former bridge holders all rush out and assault the Evil base. If there are defenders at the base, then my invaders are to run straight down to F3 (out of any Evil Alliance soaker's range), then wheel around and use the building as cover while they attack. One of the FF/AB/310 grabs the flag and books it back to his base, the rest of the team provide cover fire.

If the Evil Alliance stays back and plays defensively, my team does not leave its positions. 2 base defenders, 2 watchers, 4 bridge holders. They never leave their positions unless more than 3 opponents push up.

PS, my team is not the Good Alliance, but the Antiheroes.

DX
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Re: M4's Tactical Exercise #1

Post by DX » Thu Sep 08, 2011 9:02 pm

Ignore the following nitpicking, it is just me trying to orient myself with the scale of the map.

<!-- If the map is to scale, then each grid square is 20m x 20m, about 65.6 ft. An average water gun will fire somewhere between halfway and 2/3 of the way across. That also makes the creek only ~2m (6.6ft) wide. My standing long jump is over 8 ft, so that won't be a problem. You actually have to be really, really unathletic to fail to clear 6.6' especially if you get a running start (14 year old jumpers are expected to hit that mark standing). So, I will assume that the creek has annoying wide/deep banks, a strong current, and lots of loose rocks, thus slowing down fording. I will also have to scold some of my teammates for spending too much time pumping iron and not enough slamming iron :p Also, judging by the distance and terrain placement, a person standing at my flag will have line-of-sight all the way to the enemy flag. There seems to be little for natural cover on the enemy side, making my side the natural defense and them the natural offense. Most movements will be in the clear, so this baby is going to come down to maneuvering and guns - but with most of the enemy load-out unknown I will need to be a bit cautious. -->

Thus, I expect the enemy to bring the house. Why hold people back on defense when the defensive layout is crappy? However, if the enemy suspects that I'll play defense, that's an even better indication that 8 are coming. However, I don't want an 8v8 creek bank standoff, either. With 6 guns unaccounted for, I might have the disadvantage in the open.

Therefore, I will open with 5 up and 3 back. P1, P2, and P3 will drop their guns at the start of the game, run to the woods at A4, and look for sticks to use in flash-fortifying my flag. I want to create cover extending along the side of the building, forcing a prospective taker to put their back to the woods on their right. If time and supply of sticks permits, there should be a spread barrier in front of the main flash line from the building to the edge of the woods. Sticks thrust into the ground at angles suffices. Anything to slow down attackers and make it more difficult to run.

P1 should climb on the roof if possible. If possible, P2 will cover on his left (remember reverse left and right for my side of the field) behind the flash fort, with P3 covering on the right, next to the building. P1 should be prepared to jump off the building and join P2+P3 if either of them calls out verbally for a "Left Side Defense". If that happens, P1,P2,and P3 all rush to blocking positions behind trees in A4 and/or B4 as necessary. If climbing on the rood cannot be done, P3 remains covering right, with P1 and P2 ready to use the woods in A4 or call for the defensive move. Whenever there is any downtime, at least 1 player should be shuttling sticks back and forth. A flash defense is essential to holding my flag.

If attacked from the enemy right, all 3 players form the Left Side Defense. If attacked from the center, P2 remains in his existing position behind the flash line and P1+P3 take their left side positions. If attacked from the enemy left, the plan remains identical to attack from the center, although one of my players has to be ready to shoot if the enemy tries to climb the roof from the enemy left.

The job of my 5 players up front is to block the easy way across the creek, make it annoying for the enemy to ford elsewhere, and threaten the enemy flag if they bring the house and put too many people on the left or right.

At start time, my team will be closer to the bridge than the enemy. My 5 will sprint for the bridge immediately, but hold up on our side of it. I am P4, set up on the bridge itself, P5 covers my left, P6, P7, and P8 set up to my right but do not enter the woods in C2+C3 just yet. I wait to see what the enemy does.

I don't expect them to rush 8 to the bridge, but if they did, I wave my defensemen forward, they will set up on my left so I have my full numbers forward to stop any attempt at overrun. Those defensemen can easily fall back to the woods at B4 if the enemy shifts to their right.

If the enemy mirrors my 5 and 3 split, my defense can move to block on either side of my forward line, or let them cross at E6. If my defense sets up at B4, my left is covered. I don't care if they take the sand mound at B5 since my defense can use trees to negate the height. I can also send a player over to try and flank them. I can afford 4 on 5 up front because they still have to cross and that extra man isn't too threatening while on the other side. If the enemy wants the sand mound, I need not send the 4th player over. He is only necessary if they want to attack with speed.

More dangerous to me would be a 4 and 4 enemy split. However, if they send 4 up their right, it plays out like the above scenario. If they send 4 up their left, I have to match it on my right, in the open. If my guys stay just outside of water gun range, it should still be fine for a while. If they try to cross, even gradually, my forward line hits them from C2. While this arrangement still favors them, it opens up opportunity for me to switch to anchor position on my left flank, drop my gun, jump the creek, and make a run for it. I can always abort the attempt and jump back in C4, before the swamp. If one of them makes it back to E3 before I make it to E4, I will also have to abort. If the enemy has range on D4, I need to sprint around the swamp and my defense has to be aware enough to come up to C4 or C5 to cover.

In this scenario, some of the enemy will be drawn back to come for me, in which case my line has to shift over so the bridge is covered, freeing up P5, who was on my left earlier, to sprint to F6. If the enemy guns it through C4 and tries to block at C5, at least I will have cover and P5 can sacrifice himself if it will buy time. My team needs to fall back everywhere covering B3 and B4. Deaths are encouraged if each suicidal rush buys some time. If I can get through the A block in time, this ends the game. It's a sprint of about 200m, which with turns, woods, and uneven ground accounted for, would require about 40 sec to 1 minute of stalling to do.

If unsuccessful, the loss of my personnel is too much to recover from, so I would not attempt a lone rush unless the whole enemy side is too far to their left. This scenario can also be done if they concentrate too much on their right, but would be much more difficult because they could shift back quicker relative to the position of their flag. The other possibility in the left side blitz is that P5 and I both rush, with him suiciding to buy a few seconds.

I have the CPS 2500, my 3 back have 1 AB, 1 FF, and the CPS 4100. My other 4 up front have the rest. P5 has the shotblast so he can drop that and pick up my 2500 if I get an opportunity to go for it. Otherwise, shotblast and XP 310 need to be the players around C2 using the cover of trees to cover for their range.

Most of these plans would end up with essentially 8v8 standoff across the creek. It's hard to lone wolf me when my defense rarely leaves the A/B 3/4 block.

I can see the enemy gaining the upper hand if they can get some kills up front. Shotblast in particular is liable to die. 1 down is not an issue, but 2 might force me to bring it all back to A 3/4 and B4. OHK can still be evened out on defense, but this one will hinge upon whether I've got a good flash fortification up. If the enemy moves hard when the game is started, my defense won't have time to get up more than a ragged line of sticks. It would be essential to send the 4th man over and force the enemy back, just to buy time for a flash line. It's also possible that the woods haven't got many good sticks, or that the ground is dry and won't allow sticks to be thrust into it. In that case, the building is used to line the first stick up and build from there. This is not good cover and is meant purely to prevent rushes on the flag.

My main weakness regardless of the loadouts, just like the enemy's, is what to do about refilling. I could send 1 player at a time around to fill in a relatively safe area, like the swamp, but it might take coordination from the defense to do (bringing one guy up to cover in the front). The good thing about this venue is its small size, so that a verbal command is audible in the small space that I am occupying. No part of my defense is more than 60m away from the rest, a matter of seconds to support.

So overall, I don't exactly have a plan to take the enemy flag given the lack of cover on that side. With their arsenal unknown, I don't want my slower players to get stuck over there. This is a more fire carefully and sparingly plan, to win very gradually by elimination (no time limit was presented). Of course, if the opportunity opened up, myself or another fast player might take a lucky shot at the flag. However, a field this small enables all fast players to be dangerous, so if it's an easy sprint for me, it's an easy sprint for an enemy, too.
marauder wrote:You have to explain things in terms that kids will understand, like videogames^ That's how I got Sam to stop using piston pumpers

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