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Real World Scenario: Don't Push /w Your Assaults!?


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#1 razenWing

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 03:27 PM

We live in a game with no consequence. Statistically, it makes sense to absorb damage with highest HP mechs and hope to out-DPS than the amount of damage you receive as a whole.

Usually, that means throw your Atlas/Dire Wolf/Annihilator/etc in the front of the pack.

However, let's assume this was real life, and that there ARE consequences (death, cost, etc)

And for this premise to work, you have to assume mech combat is already an established part pf the world, so none of those "yea, but sharp sniper would 1 shot cockpit and mechs won't be practical, wah"

But ASSUMING, everything was real. Mechs are the main battlefront of weapon exchanges.

You wouldn't throw your assault mechs in the front right?

For one, they are super expensive and presumably hard to replace
Second, in a limited resource campaign, losing 1 assault is like 50% firepower in a lance, where as losing a... light might constitute a 10% loss for next fight.

Presumably, the most economic way to fight would be to have a thousand skirmishes with lights until you can entrench the main opposing battlegroup in pockets, then annihilate them with superior numbers (and finally bringing those expensive assaults at the last push)

So in this battlefield, unless either side can establish clear winner in those skirmishes, you might not even see assaults at all. A draw might just be mutual retreat from both sides with everyone don't want their most expensive battle mechs trapped when reinforcements from the other side arrive.

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I have no question nor follow up discussion with this topic. This is purely food for thought. Carry on.

#2 C E Dwyer

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 04:16 PM

In R.L armies also don't go up against equal numbers.

Invasions don't happen, unless one side thinks it has a clear tactical, numerical, or technological advantage.

Also yes you absolutely do throw your Atlas or whatever at the point of breakthrough first, to widen the gap , so the faster lighter mechs can exploit it, and hopefully prevent the opfor, from regrouping

#3 YueFei

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 04:37 PM

View PostrazenWing, on 28 January 2018 - 03:27 PM, said:

We live in a game with no consequence. Statistically, it makes sense to absorb damage with highest HP mechs and hope to out-DPS than the amount of damage you receive as a whole.

Usually, that means throw your Atlas/Dire Wolf/Annihilator/etc in the front of the pack.

However, let's assume this was real life, and that there ARE consequences (death, cost, etc)

And for this premise to work, you have to assume mech combat is already an established part pf the world, so none of those "yea, but sharp sniper would 1 shot cockpit and mechs won't be practical, wah"

But ASSUMING, everything was real. Mechs are the main battlefront of weapon exchanges.

You wouldn't throw your assault mechs in the front right?

For one, they are super expensive and presumably hard to replace
Second, in a limited resource campaign, losing 1 assault is like 50% firepower in a lance, where as losing a... light might constitute a 10% loss for next fight.

Presumably, the most economic way to fight would be to have a thousand skirmishes with lights until you can entrench the main opposing battlegroup in pockets, then annihilate them with superior numbers (and finally bringing those expensive assaults at the last push)

So in this battlefield, unless either side can establish clear winner in those skirmishes, you might not even see assaults at all. A draw might just be mutual retreat from both sides with everyone don't want their most expensive battle mechs trapped when reinforcements from the other side arrive.

-------------

I have no question nor follow up discussion with this topic. This is purely food for thought. Carry on.


Historically, the main thing limiting a military force's advance has been logistics. Transportation, communication, supplies. Both yours and the enemy's. My line of thinking on this is:
In WW1, the thing that really caused stalemates was not the trench warfare in and of itself. It was the rail-transported reserves that could plug a hole in a defense, much more rapidly than attackers could exploit a breach. There were sound tactics for attacking a defense, for which the defense had counters, for which the attackers had counter-counters, and so on. The most obvious way to defend against an attack is to have a ton of MG's and riflemen to repulse it. The counter to that defense is to initiate an attack with a massive artillery barrage, which slaughters the massed defenders. The counter to that is to keep your riflemen in the rear or down in bunkers, safe from the artillery, with sparsely-manned interlocking MGs at the front, which by themselves are enough to force attackers to use packet movement, which keeps them safer as they bound up, but packet movement is slow, and it also has much less mass and momentum. This gives defenders time to surge up with their riflemen from the bunkers to repulse the attack. Then, at the end of all that, even if the attackers manage to get into the trench network, and hold it for the time being.... rail-transported reserves are brought up, the enemy shells the crap out of what was previously their own trench network, and then their own infantry reserves move in to re-take it.

Then came the tank, which could provide direct-fire support for infantry and were effectively immune to MG's. All of a sudden your attack can advance much more quickly, with more mass and momentum. You don't need to have infantry doing packet movement, and/or crawling/inching their way forward bit by bit while waiting for artillery to find their marks.

I dunno if I may be stretching an analogy too far, but if you equate those masses of infantry to light mechs, and the tanks to assault mechs... then no, you don't hold back your assault mechs in an attack. That doesn't mean you just commit your assault mechs willy-nilly, but it also means that they are indeed meant to spearhead an attack.

I think most people severely underestimate the importance of momentum for an infantry attack, because most human beings aren't RTS units who will mindlessly fight to their deaths. Human psychology is such a funny thing, that a unit on the attack that gets bogged down into a protracted shoot-out (goes to the ground and stops moving forward) can suffer 50+% casualties over the course of several hours before finally giving up and retreating, but take that same unit and motivate the soldiers to keep their momentum up, and even if they suffer 10% casualties within a couple of minutes (a much higher rate of casualties), they can keep moving forward to press the attack home and overrun and route the defenders.

Giving your attacking infantry some tanks in front of them is a tremendous boost to their confidence and survival, and keeps their advance moving at speed.

#4 The6thMessenger

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 04:40 PM

To be fair, the military did use tanks in cavalry charges while supported by infantry. I think General Patton did this.

#5 razenWing

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 05:13 PM

I have no doubt in the final push (so in my scenario, the final phase of your attack), you can throw your assaults in as spearheads. But in the entirety of a military campaign, I like to think that you only commit your assaults until the end game.

I hate to say that there is no correlation between the infantry/tank analogy, but a few key differences:

1: infantries don't move faster than tanks, but light mechs are 3-4 times the speed of assaults
2: wouldn't the equivalent be light tanks vs MBT? in which case, the Germans used light assault force to clear the path before committing the panzers and other heavy MBTs. (though that's not a fair parallel either, cause there's no clear equivalent of tech back then to tech now)

I like to think a more direct equivalent is naval warfare. You skirmish with your destroyers, subs, and cruisers before committing your battleships.

#6 Nik Reaper

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 05:22 PM

As a number of lore builds for assaults are long range mechs I would use them as a main set piece of a force , staying back and using the superior firepower at a range where few foes can make equal trades, probly support them with some lrm carriers.

Because how lore builds there mechs ( really inefficient.. bracketed and mostly un-specialized ) the only mechs with serious long range firepower, before the clans, were heavy's and assaults, so such an expensive piece of equipment might be best used to favorably exchange fire, crippling lesser targets while surviving to be repared and sent back to do it over again.

The only time I would consider sending those in the front is if they could crush what ever is opposed with minimal losses, ei , lose 1 assault at best instead of 4 mediums or more lights to get the job done, after all in the lore most mechs can be salvaged to some degree and the one who wins the field gets the spoils and salvage , so in the end it ends up as a simple cost/gain calculation.

#7 InvictusLee

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 05:26 PM

Armored Infantry + Calvary = No actual need for battlemechs.

Actually, I WOULD use my kodiak, or atlas, or pillager as a hole puncher, punch a hole in the lines and let the calv + infantry do the rest. Realistically, its the air support that has all the heavy lifting since they can both nuke things from orbit and then swoop down from outside of range and destroy everything in sight in seconds.

#8 The6thMessenger

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 06:11 PM

View PostrazenWing, on 28 January 2018 - 05:13 PM, said:

I hate to say that there is no correlation between the infantry/tank analogy, but a few key differences:

1: infantries don't move faster than tanks, but light mechs are 3-4 times the speed of assaults
2: wouldn't the equivalent be light tanks vs MBT? in which case, the Germans used light assault force to clear the path before committing the panzers and other heavy MBTs. (though that's not a fair parallel either, cause there's no clear equivalent of tech back then to tech now)

I like to think a more direct equivalent is naval warfare. You skirmish with your destroyers, subs, and cruisers before committing your battleships.


Come on man, it's not hard to figure out that 60 tons worth of M1 Abrams armor is better than body armor of human beings. It's not the speed, it's the moving barricade to execute a well done push.

#9 Khobai

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 06:20 PM

theres also still the fact that assaults cant actually tank. 12v12, nerfed torso twist/agility, and botched rescaling have made sure of that. having ghost heat loopholes like laser vomit isnt helping either.

the predominant strategy in MWO isnt to send the assaults in first. Its to have everyone push at the same time and share armor as evenly as possible. you want to keep as many mechs alive for as long as possible to keep your firepower at peak output. what you dont want is your assaults dying first because then your firepower drops considerably.

if assaults could actually tank things might be different. but they cant.

Edited by Khobai, 28 January 2018 - 06:37 PM.


#10 Troa Barton

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 06:32 PM

Assaults today are like aircraft carriers where the Annihilator is a battleship.
In either event they are both escorted by cruisers and destroyers and in the case of the locust a fishing boat.

#11 Hit the Deck

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 06:37 PM

You only enter a trade where/when you have an advantage, or at least in equal term with the enemy.

In order for that to happen, lighter-fast-mobile 'mechs should scout and look for a gap in the enemy position and once it's found, the Assaults can initiate a push, whose objective is to do significant damage to the enemy, backed by the whole team. When the Assaults push and fail to do something big, your team loses a significant portion of firepower (because your fatties are probably dead now since they can't get in and out of position quickly).

And pushing doesn't mean that the one who is doing it is in the frontmost position - simply make your intention clear that you are going to commit to a push.

Edited by Hit the Deck, 28 January 2018 - 06:43 PM.


#12 Khobai

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 06:46 PM

assaults are more like battlecruisers than carriers.

they have the guns of a battleship but the armor of a cruiser.

theyre expensive, huge, and laughably easy to sink. And you have no clue why you built something that stupid in the first place.

in real life they had the excuse of naval arms treaties that said warships couldnt be over a certain tonnage. and that gave birth to battlecruisers and pocket battleships. but the whole concept was proven to be fatally flawed.



As for carriers, the closest thing MWO has is probably LRM boats lol.

Edited by Khobai, 28 January 2018 - 06:54 PM.


#13 Fleeb the Mad

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 06:53 PM

The thing about MWO is that it works generally opposite to real world analogies for a couple in-universe quirks.

First, in the real world the reason assault-class anythings exist is that generally bigger units carry defences that make them impervious to smaller ones and weaponry that smaller units have no adequate defense against. In a unit on unit engagement, having one big tank is vastly superior to a pile of smaller ones. This isn't true in Battletech because of ablative armour and the ability of light mechs to chip away at an assault.

Second, unlike MWO actual wars generally have a huge amount of territory. You need numbers just to attempt to provide some semblance of coverage to multiple areas and faster units tend to fight at the front so they can respond to changes on short notice. Your light units need to find the enemy concentration before you can think of where to deploy your heavy units, otherwise they're wasted.

Heavy and assault units represent a durable concentration of force that you deploy as a spearhead or against a fortified position, since they have armour and armaments that can withstand and defeat what's arrayed against them. In MWO it's actually more sensible to send light mechs in first to get an enemy distracted and facing away from the push, preventing your point mechs from being annihilated by focused fire. The existence of ablative armour is again, the reason why focused fire works at all. You don't need to fire ten missiles if one of them will destroy a target. You fire at multiple targets instead.

Real world analogies are fairly hard because of the tech base. Modern war philosophy doesn't jive with the idea that a unit like a Battlemech has armour that's proof against every kind of weapon and requires multiple successive hits to be breached.

#14 The6thMessenger

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 06:58 PM

View PostKhobai, on 28 January 2018 - 06:46 PM, said:

assaults are more like battlecruisers than carriers.

they have the guns of a battleship but the armor of a cruiser.

theyre expensive, huge, and laughably easy to sink. And you have no clue why you built something that stupid in the first place.

in real life they had the excuse of naval arms treaties that said warships couldnt be over a certain tonnage. and that gave birth to battlecruisers and pocket battleships. but the whole concept was proven to be fatally flawed.

As for carriers, the closest thing MWO has is probably LRM boats

View PostKhobai, on 28 January 2018 - 06:20 PM, said:

theres also still the fact that assaults cant actually tank. 12v12, nerfed torso twist/agility, and botched rescaling have made sure of that. having ghost heat loopholes like laser vomit isnt helping either.

the predominant strategy in MWO isnt to send the assaults in first. Its to have everyone push at the same time and share armor as evenly as possible. you want to keep as many mechs alive for as long as possible to keep your firepower at peak output. what you dont want is your assaults dying first because then your firepower drops considerably.

if assaults could actually tank things might be different. but they cant.


To be fair, tanks themselves are still vulnerable. We have anti-tank weapons that were developed over the years such as the Lahti 20mm and the Solothurn S1000, which were obsolete by the time of WW2 as they turned to more wieldy options such as RPGs.

Sure, chobam, reactive armor -- but in the end they can still be destroyed. What is important is what you do with the tanks, in the case of the game, one tank isn't supposed to tank all damage but just supposed to spearhead the push with other tanks and the supporting mechs.

#15 Y E O N N E

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 07:30 PM

View PostThe6thMessenger, on 28 January 2018 - 04:40 PM, said:

To be fair, the military did use tanks in cavalry charges while supported by infantry. I think General Patton did this.


They've been doing it since the First World War.

#16 Scyther

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 07:41 PM

Lore-wise, the situation is much as the OP stated. Novels and background info in the various manuals show that your lights are there to locate enemy force disposition, potentially to lead them to ambush or away from an area. Often lights were under orders 'do not engage, spot, call it in, get out'.

(BT lore lights do not run around chewing up assaults and heavies from behind)

Most forces that I recall were composed primarily of mediums, which were meant to get out and engage targets where you wanted the fight to happen, and either stall them there or pull them towards the approaching heavies.

Assaults were generally deployed when a defensive strongpoint was needed, or when a known large scale encounter was planned where the assaults could be put down within reasonable range.

A few quirky situations where a heavy/assault force was dropped farther away so as to be undetected, but then spent all night marching up a long ravine or, iirc, in one case along the bottom of a river, to get into range.

I do recall several scenarios where assaults were unable to navigate a marshy swamp, or a crowded forest.

So yes, OP, generally assaults did not lead a push, except in some cases where a pass needed to be taken against strong opposition, or a well defended point was being assaulted.

But lore is one thing, and MWO has a very different set of primary considerations.

Edited by MadBadger, 28 January 2018 - 07:42 PM.


#17 Khobai

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 08:16 PM

battletech was also usually 4v4 or at most 8v8

battletech wasnt 12v12 usually. because that was too much recordkeeping. no one wanted to keep track of 24 sheets of paper.

I suspect assault mechs would take a nosedive in battletech 12v12 too.

in 12v12 youd be better off with multiple smaller mechs that are harder to hit than one big mech thats easy to hit and can be focused.

its the same problem MWO has with 12v12. gunlines get exponentially stronger with more mechs on each team. gunlines in 12v12 are way stronger than gunlines ever were in 8v8.

going back to 8v8 would solve a lot of problems and help bring diversity back to the game.

Edited by Khobai, 28 January 2018 - 08:20 PM.


#18 5th Fedcom Rat

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 08:33 PM

View PostrazenWing, on 28 January 2018 - 03:27 PM, said:

For one, they are super expensive and presumably hard to replace


Battletech Technical Readout 3055 actually notes this problem in its description of the Stone Rhino mech.

So for decades I've used the term "Stone Rhino Syndrome" around friends and family members to describe things that are really awesome, but too valuable to actually use as they were intended for fear of damaging them (sports cars, luxury clothes and high end cell phones and portable game systems are all examples of this).

The German Tiger II tank or Dora rail gun, or the Japanese Yamato battleship, are WW2 examples of this syndrome.

Edited by 5th Fedcom Rat, 28 January 2018 - 08:39 PM.


#19 Christophe Ivanov

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 08:47 PM

If Assault Mechs performed like a M1A1HA, M1A2 TUSK II etc, there would be no contest. You would not go into a battle with UACs that over heat as easy as they do now. You would not take them into battle with such a high rate of jamming. You would not take a Laser vomit boat if it over heats as much as they do. Why? Because any armed forces worth their salt would not expend billions for such crappy performance weapons.

Right now, the USAF is going to have Lasers mounted on their Fighters within the next 10 years and I bet they will not put something that over heats like what we use in this game. The only reason why we have such crappy weapons is because this is a game that is micro managed and nerfed/buffed into silly oblivion that has no bearing in real life technology and performance.

#20 razenWing

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Posted 28 January 2018 - 10:36 PM

Here's another example.

How many times in MW4 did you forgo using a particular mech in fear of losing it or having it disabled for the next mission? I think a lot of you guys are thinking of winning a battle, but a war is often not won with just one fight.

For example, I don't deploy the Atlas or Dire Wolf in my hanger until the last mission. I remember early on, I would try to save my Vultures and/or give my lancemates "disposable" mechs until I can comfortably field another team of backups that will keep me from being short a mission from now.

(this is especially true in Beach Fight of Mw4: Mercenaries. I might pick up junk pilots and junk mechs just so that I can win without losing my best "items" and pick up Falcon along the way)

Winning aside, from pure economic standpoint, it would be really hard to field assaults unless there's like a 80~90% certainty of the situation. Which I think realistically, often time, there just aren't. So if both sides aren't being forced to flip the trump card one way or another, both sides might realistically just think about skirmishing for a while with lights and probably just call it a draw if no clear winner after a certain engagement time zone.

Losing a 20~30 million CBill mech on the other hand, would be potentially devastating.

----------

Also, in my imaginary scenario, I am also giving back Mechs what they are designed to do. So none of these "ghost heat" or other game play limitations. Assaults are slow, but carry many high caliber lasers, and will absolutely be the most brandishing weapon on the battlefield.

On another angle, losing something like that, beyond the economics, is probably super bad for morale too. It's just way too high of a risk to see regular deployment.





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