Important hints on assaulting in F14

**Mr Grumpy** · 06-19-2010, 03:56 AM,

One of the ways in which F14 differs from PzC titles is in the way you handle assaults, in PzC the procedure is pretty standard throughout the titles i.e. disrupt the defenders and then assault, here is the section of Ed's notes that handles that issue and just i case you have not read to page 147 of the notes (shame on you ;)) here is what he says on the subject....

When to assault
The most important thing to know in First World War Campaigns, is when to press home an assault and when not to assault. Generally speaking, you should of course get accustomed to the particular strengths and weaknesses of the units in general. For example, an infantry unit can almost always assault a mounted (Travel Mode) cavalry unit, bicycle unit or engineer unit with success, without having to disrupt them before hand. "Success" in this case is defined as taking the ground. You should also always to have at least a 2:1 advantage when making an assault, try to avoid 1:1 assaults as much as possible.

In the case of enemy cavalry, you can usually tell whether it is a pesky cavalry squadron or a full cavalry regiment by seeing what the effect is of their return fire.
[Image: 7253a8183cCP%20Cav%20Sq.JPG]

If the enemy is deemed to be nothing more than a cavalry squadron, then you can press home the assault to great effect, again without waiting for the enemy to be disrupted. This is also true for engineer units which might also be broken down into companies.
[Image: 216c8bed1dCP%20Eng.JPG]

If you have a pesky engineer unit barring the way somewhere, then simply overrun it with a massed infantry assault and you can probably rest assure that the enemy is throwing "the kitchen sink" in the line at this point if they are wasting engineer units in this manner.

And finally and most importantly, you should NEVER wait for field gun or machine gun units to be disrupted before carrying out an assault.
[Image: 310c902671Brit%20Field%20Gun.JPG]

[Image: 310c902671Brit%20Field%20Gun.JPG]

If said units are disrupted then that is great, otherwise always try to disrupt the enemy infantry battalions at the very least. In almost every case, all you need to do is disrupt the enemy infantry battalions, then press forward with an assault of two or more infantry battalions of your own. Such an assault will force the non disrupted field gun and machine gun units to bear the brunt of the attack and will cause them to take significant losses. This can then be followed by more assaults if possible to drive the enemy out of the hex. Either way, if you are not able to take the hex then you have likely caused a great loss to the core defense of the hex, thus making it easier to take in future turns or forcing the enemy to withdraw on his own turn altogether.

**Ricky B** · 06-19-2010, 04:53 AM,

I will add one thing on assaults, based on my playtesting experience. If you have a nearby enemy stack that includes MGs or Arty, plus one inf battalion, all in good order with a 2 hex range firepower advantage over your forces, and you can assault it with a couple of battalions or at least the 2-1 advantage, I found it very helpful to assault the stack, as it frequenly killed off the MG or gun unit with a few assaults. Then I could pull back a hex and the enemy has lost its firepower advantage. As with everything, this is situation dependend, but I did a lot fo that in HTH testing and felt it shifted things in my favor in longer scenarios, even if the assault was costly.