92 replies to this topic

[Mazzyplz]

crossing the T means the reds are static and you move around to put the firing line on their weak side. it does not mean sitting static;

in fact crossing the T is not static because it requires the blue ships to move - not the same as what is commonly referred to as a 'mwo firing line'

in fact crossing the T is also known as a sidepush or a wide flank in mwo

or the "wraparound"

presenting this tactic as a reason to sit still, immobile/static on wedge formation is disingenuous

Edited by Mazzyplz, 30 September 2015 - 12:54 AM.

[Setun]

The only time I've seen a firing line repel a deathball has been when multiple ballistic heavy mechs were firing at once on the deathball. It's hard to keep momentum when multiple Jagermechs, King Crabs, and Maulers are laying into you with U-AC 5's and AC-10's.

[Kiiyor]

Homeskilit, on 29 September 2015 - 09:44 PM, said:

One of the reasons the Death Ball is so effective is because people do not understand it nor how to counter it, so I will attempt to explain it.

The Firing Line (Red troops) and Death Ball (Blue troops) were the primary tactics in the Napoleonic Era of warfare. The French favored the Death Ball (called a Column) and used it to great effect, in fact they nearly conquered all of Europe with this tactic. Why? Because no one could stand toe to toe with them. When you are in a thin line and the mass of enemy is coming towards you it is frightening, everyone broke. So why do we not call Europe France right now? Because the English had DISCIPLINE! (Not going to discuss the winter campaign in Russia right now).

Notice how many front facing Red guys are able to fire? Notice how many front facing Blue guys are able to fire? That means ALL the red guys are pouring their fire into the Blue guys in front? The Blue guys will lose. Now your team is going to take damage and you are going to lose troops, but the Line will prevail every time as long as they HOLD. For every player who does not participate in the Firing Line, the ability for it to stop the Death Ball drops.

Now once the Firing Line has been achieved, and the Death Ball has been stopped, the game changes, you must now adapt to these changes in order to win. It is completely possible the other team sees your Firing Line and adjusts their strategy, It is up to you and your team to determine what best to do from then on, but a complete, unwavering Firing Line will always stop a Death Ball.

That's how Wellington defeated Napoleon!

[Homeskilit]

Kiiyor, on 30 September 2015 - 12:54 AM, said:

That's how Wellington defeated Napoleon!

Yup, he dominated the French in Peninsular War with it too. Trafalgar was a bit different, were talking ships, the Spanish-French laid into the English fleet and failed to sink a single ship as they were approaching. This allowed the English to pretty much shotgun the F/S ships point blank as they passed through and devastated them. I would like to think our Mechwarriors would not fail so utterly.

Edited by Homeskilit, 30 September 2015 - 01:23 AM.

[Mazzyplz]

Homeskilit, on 30 September 2015 - 01:22 AM, said:

This allowed the English to pretty much shotgun the F/S ships point blank as they passed through and devastated them. I would like to think our Mechwarriors would not fail so utterly.

depending on the map they might. depends how long the pushing death ball is shot for; how many seconds are we talking?

the uphill battle to h9 in alpine is tough because you have to march through open ground.

in canyon network or frozen city's ship, it is plausible to tank the enemy team and force the brawl

if your push comes out of the right cover that is

[Homeskilit]

Again I think you are reading too deeply into this, trying to find fault in it by dissecting it in every situation. Battles are fluid, they constantly change, different tactics are used at different times. I simply wished to point out that a good, disciplined, well positioned firing line will destroy a typical death ball. Yes there are times it will fail to stop it, just as most of Europe failed to stop the French, but the majority of the time it should win.

[Mazzyplz]

Homeskilit, on 30 September 2015 - 01:30 AM, said:

Again I think you are reading too deeply into this, trying to find fault in it by dissecting it in every situation. Battles are fluid, they constantly change, different tactics are used at different times. I simply wished to point out that a good, disciplined, well positioned firing line will destroy a typical death ball.

to the contrary, i am doing the same thing as you only showing whatever new player who reads this other ways to play and how to deal with an enemy who uses this tactic.
at the end of the day choosing this tactic will only be as strong as the ammount of ER/gauss snipers or ballistics on your team. in 12 man and especially in community warfare the firing line is nigh unbeatable with the firing line setup, because you can basically predict what loadouts will be in your team; (and cw maps are based on chokepoints)

not so in 4 man or pug; you might make a firing line but maybe half your team is pulses; and the enemy is all brawl just due to chance. if you try and set up a firing line in an urban map it might not be pretty, just sayin

it used to be very viable in the old river city's citadel but now that the map got more cover citadel firing line has become significantly less optimal (suboptimal i would say)

[Johnny Z]

Firing line would be better in the open and tight formation would be better short range in cover. Although almost every reply has had a valid point so far.

Have to watch the end of this match its great. Just skip to end if you need to.

oops had wrong match there for a sec.

Edited by Johnny Z, 30 September 2015 - 02:08 AM.

[Galenit]

Homeskilit, on 29 September 2015 - 09:44 PM, said:

One of the reasons the Death Ball is so effective is because people do not understand it nor how to counter it, so I will attempt to explain it.

The Firing Line (Red troops) and Death Ball (Blue troops) were the primary tactics in the Napoleonic Era of warfare. The French favored the Death Ball (called a Column) and used it to great effect, in fact they nearly conquered all of Europe with this tactic. Why? Because no one could stand toe to toe with them. When you are in a thin line and the mass of enemy is coming towards you it is frightening, everyone broke. So why do we not call Europe France right now? Because the English had DISCIPLINE! (Not going to discuss the winter campaign in Russia right now).

Notice how many front facing Red guys are able to fire? Notice how many front facing Blue guys are able to fire? That means ALL the red guys are pouring their fire into the Blue guys in front? The Blue guys will lose. Now your team is going to take damage and you are going to lose troops, but the Line will prevail every time as long as they HOLD. For every player who does not participate in the Firing Line, the ability for it to stop the Death Ball drops.

Now once the Firing Line has been achieved, and the Death Ball has been stopped, the game changes, you must now adapt to these changes in order to win. It is completely possible the other team sees your Firing Line and adjusts their strategy, It is up to you and your team to determine what best to do from then on, but a complete, unwavering Firing Line will always stop a Death Ball.

Red fires, the first line of blue are gone,
the blues are still marching, the reds reloading their muskets,
the reds fire, another line of blue are gone,
the blues come to the fireline and kill all the reds with their bajonetts, because their are still more blues then reds.

And dont miss, that every blue also have a shell to fire during the march, so some reds also die on the march of the blues.

And maybe there are some blue cavallerie behind the trees that will come in a flank, where htey only match 2 reds at that side of the fireline a time ...

Your example shows how a fire line can work,
but you used an example with muzzleloading muskets and bajonetts and missed the other elements used in that time and the art of war they used. During the france and english war from 10000 bullets fired they made only 500-700 kills and injuries.

Edited by Galenit, 30 September 2015 - 02:19 AM.

[Soultraxx]

Mazzyplz, on 30 September 2015 - 12:42 AM, said:

besides like i said there are other ways to beat a firing line..

you want to see a push being used historically to annihilate a firing line and change history?

look no further than admiral nelson

http://theconsul.org/?p=3417



if you don't try this in alpine peaks you could even make this work in mwo

https://en.wikipedia...he_Nelson_Touch

and i quote:"Nelson planned to divide his fleet into three sections. The largest part would engage closely with one section of the enemy's fleet crushing it with greater numbers. The other ships, sailing in two columns, would cut the enemy line and prevent them from coming to the aid of their comrades. The enemy fleet could then be destroyed piecemeal."

they are describing a more or less typical mwo push when it finally happens, assaults come in and tank one side of enemy formation, light mechs put the other side in disarray.
the death ball takes the ridge

As a former member of the Royal Navy this is my favourite post of the day and brings back some fond memories. Thank you

[Lykaon]

Rushin Roulette, on 29 September 2015 - 10:05 PM, said:

Good theory, however this only works in an arena style setting (ie. no obstruction of view and no large elevation differences)

As soon as there is any obstruction between the groups, the deathball will win in every case if the opponents are evenly matched and both sides have discipline. The reason for this is that the deathball shooters are able to focus a smaller part of the firing line while safe from the larger part of the firing line and push around the obstruction bit by bit to open up new targets one after the other.

The other advantage a deathball has is that it is mobile and can thus reorganise itself on the fly by letting damaged mechs fall back and fresh mechs take the place of the vanguard. An immobile firing line can not do this and focused targets have no chance of protecting themselves (thus loosing the complete mech as opposed to the possibility of saving armour through vanguard substitiuation and retaining fire power).

When a firing line is unable to bring it's bulk of firepower to bear on the tighter deathball formation it is time to change strategies because you are no longer a firing line you are instead being flanked.

I would recomend advancing to envelope the tighter formation to allow most if not all of your mechs to fire on the deathball.Meanwhile (hopefully) you have successfully contained the tighter formationed deathball and forced the enemy mechs to either engage seperate targets or risk crossing firing lanes to focus targets.Both are advantageous to you.

Under no circumstances should any formation remain riggid or immobile if that strategy is no longer advantageous.A gunline when used correctly is formation and tactic used before a charge is executed to mop up the enemy that,if the gunline was executed properly has taken more damage do to the more efficent focus fire potential of a well formed gunline.

A gunline can begin as a roughly line formation perpendicular to the forward mechs of an approaching deathball. But it should not stay so.If the stand and shoot plan is not going to break the enemy advance you will find yourself in a close quarters brawl not of your own choosing.

Frequently there is this momment when the enemy is begining to faulter in their determination and are questioning the wisdom f weather incoming fire from the gunline.This momment is ussually at about the time that the most damage mechs slow or fall back.

At this momment the gunline should it's self aggressivley advance ideally partially enveloping the enemy formation.This is done by advancing a portion of the gunline's outer edge into the side of the deathball.Or if the deathball is near the center of the gunline formation turning both ends of the line into the enemy.

Standing immobile the whole time is not always the best use of a gunline since it has it's failings such as blitz charges or flanking.

[Davegt27]

what if your firing line is all Orion's and the death ball is a mix of doom crows and DWs'?

just saying

[Johnny Z]

lol good point.

[Hotice]

Nah, best way to deal with deathball is flanking. Firing line needs to be on good ground to be effective. With only 12 mechs per side, all it is needed is to move together and no blocking shots.

[Homeskilit]

There are some changes that I think need to be made to make tactics like this easier to utilize, mainly the pre game lobby needs to be updated. You should be able to discern the load out of friendly mechs. How can a commander make decisions on what tactics to use if he does not understand the forces at his disposal? Also the battle grid map (B on keyboard in game) should replace the current map and be fully functioning, this would allow teams to set down and discuss a strategy before the game (no one usually even talks in my pre game lobbies). Also chat would need to be bigger to better allow for this.

[Mystere]

Well, I strive for this instead:

[Homeskilit]

Galenit, on 30 September 2015 - 02:15 AM, said:

Your example shows how a fire line can work,
but you used an example with muzzleloading muskets and bajonetts and missed the other elements used in that time and the art of war they used. During the france and english war from 10000 bullets fired they made only 500-700 kills and injuries.

Roughly 42,000 people were killed or injured at Waterloo.

[Davegt27]

USAF might have a better way



just saying

[Kubernetes]

It's a tad simplistic because a deathball is not a static formation. If the terrain is favorable, mechs naturally fan out along the flanks once resistance is met. Sure, if you catch a deathball in a tight alley and pound it with arty, LRMs, and direct fire, you'll crush it, but there aren't many maps where that happens a lot. The problem with a static firing line is that it's super vulnerable to getting rolled up by a flank, whereas the amoeba-like deathball can reform quickly to meet a new threat.

[Lugh]

Dakota1000, on 29 September 2015 - 11:24 PM, said:

While all this talk about firing lines makes me happy, I was thinking of something a little more revolutionary. (that's a reference mhmm)

Instead of clustering up in a single large group the team could counter a firing line by being in a large scattered group. As long as all members coordinate their attacks the firing line will be chipped away while the attackers fade in and out of cover.

Think an army of hill humpers, poptarts, and peekers against a rigid line of gauss crabs. Given gauss charge and laser burn times, the defenders would be lucky to get much damage done at all.

Only if the peekers and pokers are never spotted by the line. If they are they are destroyed one by one. The peek game against a full line is VERY difficult to trade well against.