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Today, I'm going to discuss one of the most importance subjects of all, the conduct of offensive missions at platoon, squad, section and fire team level. From the beginning, I must point out that these small units should seldom attack alone – rather they will be attacking as part of a larger force. But in this series of articles, I am going over the very basics of tactics, of moving, attacking and defending – the building blocks of what happens at company level and higher. The principles you will learn in this article can and will be applied at higher and higher levels as the battle increases in size, as it expands laterally and in depth to include the entire region. As a front line leader, you may be fighting to the death for just a single tile, just one hex among the many on the board. If that is your mission – carry it out with vigor, and the best way you can according to the mission you've been given, the enemy situation, the troops you have on hand, and the time and space available. If the mission proves impossible, you have a duty to report that to your chain of command. But even so, remember two things. The mission always comes first, and you always take care of your soldiers – Always. Now on to the lesson.

When you go on the offense, you will perform one of three missions at any one time.

1. Movement to Contact
2. Hasty Attack
3. Deliberate Attack

Movement to Contact

I find the Movement to Contact to be the most interesting mission, and one that as a small unit leader, gives you the greatest opportunity for creativity. Now, you should be familiar with our previous article on movement formations and techniques, and if you haven't read that article, I suggest you do so now:

http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/battle-tactics-iii-how-to-move-on-the-battlefield-1468898/1/20

When performing a movement to contact, you are moving from Point A to Point B – as your mission dictates and you are at least two hexes away from the enemy. Once you close to within a single hex, you are in contact, and subject to the enemy's fire. In real life situations, you often do not know where the enemy is – the eRepublik military module takes a lot away from the fog of war by revealing all deployed enemy positions to you at any one time...

Now here is the rub. While you may know where the enemy is at any given time, you don't necessarily know where the enemy will be going. So as you get closer to the enemy's positions, you will get within his movement range where a) the enemy can reach where you are now in a single move and b) can reach where you are going to be in your next move. The Soviets called the state in which they started to deploy for battle a “pre-battle formation” and many armies call the movement to contact (a characteristically American term) the “approach march”. But regardless of the nationality or its tactical system, the idea is much the same. As you begin to approach the enemy, you will change over from a less secure formation and movement technique to the posture in which you want to fight the enemy when contact is made. So you begin to concentrate your force, reducing your frontage and the number of hexes it occupies. For example, if you have a four man fire team of riflemen, and you were moving a WEDGE 4 formation (four hexes wide) it will take you two turns to concentrate your entire fire team on a single hex. In general, you want to make contact with the minimum force forward – that enables you to maneuver to a flank and concentrate fires from a single hex – but in some instances, you want your entire team up and fighting when contact is made. So the basic rule is that if the enemy is more mobile than you are, then you need to start concentrating further back from the front line or where you expect to meet him and engage in combat.
This is where your movement techniques come into play. Let's say you are (once again) that four man rifle team and you are up against a tank platoon four hexes from your position. In the vicinity of (05, 15) You are in WEDGE 4. and your team occupies the following positions, facing NORTH:

A1 – Fire team leader (05,19) (Forest)
A2 – Fire team leader's buddy (04, 19) (Clear)
A3 – Assistant fire team leader's buddy (07, 20) (Clear)
A4 – Assistant fire team leader (06, 19) (Clear)

If you move forward one hex at a time, you could be in contact within one to two turns, depending on how you move and how the enemy moves. Let's say that in addition to the forest hex you are occupying, there is a forest hex at (06, 1😎. In order to meet the enemy at a position of advantage you take the following actions:

First turn

1. Go to a WEDGE 3 in bounding overwatch (successive bounds), you will stay stationary at (05,19). Your buddy (the man in the A2 slot) will move to join you there. Your assistant fire team leader will bound forward to (06,1😎 and his buddy will move to (07, 19)

Second turn

2a Either converge the entire team in a single bound at (06,1😎

OR

2b Keep your buddy team in position at (05,19) and let the other buddy team complete its bound with both the men in the A3 and A4 slots at (06,1😎.

Now, let's say the enemy tank platoon, all four of them shows up at (06, 17) (A clear hex). There are advantages and disadvantages in either having chosen 2a or 2b. Let's talk about 2a first. If you chose 2a, your entire fire team is committed at once the second the enemy force makes contact. It is an even fight, since the tanks have an advantage against your infantry, but you are in the best defensive terrain. The tanks are not likely to carry your position, since they would have to kill all four of your team (this may happen if their weapon quality or skill is superior, but let us assume that this is an equal fight in those terms. Whatever is left, you will get to counterattack the following turn, under less favorable conditions (e.g. into the clear, where the tanks have the advantage). You will need to kill at least three tanks in this first engagement and only lose one man to make this second attack favorable – if that condition is not met, I would suggest disengaging and pulling the entire fire team back to (05,19). (And trying to get your wounded men back up healthy ASAP and redeploy onto the board.

But what if you chose 2b ? Well in that case, your A1 and A2 men are not in contact and free to maneuver either into (06,1😎, or to another hex, either to close and fight, or break contact. You have the same basic odds, but greater freedom of action. In either case, the movement to contact is ended, when you make contact with the enemy, at the point you will perform the following actions on contact.

1, Return fire
2. Deploy and report
3. Develop the Situation
4. Select a course of action

This cycle will probably take no more than 3 minutes in either your movement turn or the enemy's turn. You need to understand what your options are and how best to react in a given situation, You should try anticipate the situation before making contact, and think through options as the situation unfolds. But in any case, you will end up in one of two postures.

1. Hasty Defense – when the enemy is superior after the first engagement, or has strong reinforcements nearby
2. Hasty Attack – our second offensive mission, when you have the advantage after that first exchange.

Hasty Attack

When attacking, you will adopt a scheme of maneuver. The following are considered by the US Army to be the basic forms of maneuver.

1. Frontal attack. Your strength is distributed across the enemy force (which may occupy several hexes) with which you are in contact. This form of maneuver is suited to situations when you want to pin the enemy down in a defensive position, but not necessarily gain a penetration. Frontal attacks are often costly, and may not achieve decisive success.

2. Penetration attack. You concentrate overwhelming force on a weak point in the enemy's defense, and once you have capture that position, you continue to expand the gap you have created. Small units may often participated in a penetration as part of a larger force.

3. Turning movement. You have some room to maneuver to a flank and attack the enemy's position exposed to that flank. In a classic turning movement, you detach part of your force to make the turning movement while the other part of your force maintains contact with the enemy to the front. At small unit level, you may be able to perform small turning movements against isolated enemy players or very small teams and squads, or you may execute this maneuver as part of a larger force. Successful execution of a turning movement often requires superiority over the enemy force.

4. Envelopment. You move out of contact to the enemy's flanks and rear and either surround the enemy, or force the enemy to maneuver to a disadvantageous position. Oftentimes the would-be enveloping force may find itself encircled.

5. Infiltration. I'm actually just going to quote the Army Field Manual 3-0 here: An infiltration is a form of maneuver in which an attacking force conducts undetected movement through or into an area occupied by enemy forces to occupy a position of advantage in the enemy rear while exposing only small elements to enemy defensive fires. This is a good trick if you can pull this off in eRep.


By definition, maneuver consists of both fire and movement. In eRepublik, all units can both fire and move in the same turn, and so you can commit your entire force to the assault in that first contact. All units committed to the attack will move forward into the attacked hex when the enemy is eliminated. In some situations, such as described above, you may wish to have part of your force defend, while the other part moves and attacks. In that case, you will have two teams or elements:

1. A maneuver element, which moves and if necessary attacks once it makes contact
2. A base of fire element which stays stationary and attacks by fire.

In real life, the maneuver element closes to the last covered and concealed position while the base of fire element walks its fire in front of the maneuver element until the assault is complete, and then joins the maneuver element on the objective. In eRepublik all this happens (if the attack is successful) in a single movement turn, and rather than being able to develop the situation by fire and movement, you will always be committed to the assault when you attack. And you will be at your most vulnerable to counterattack after you have closed on the enemy's position, perhaps in unfavorable terrain. This leads us to the final phase of the hasty attack – consolidation and reorganization. If you have moved to unfavorable terrain when conducting the attack, you need to redeploy and reorient your force onto more favorable terrain, and you may also need to refresh your force, getting your wounded back onto the board, or taking on replacements (this is the reorganizing part). In any case, the hasty attack either ends with your unit in hasty defense, or reassuming the movement to contact.

Deliberate Attacks. A deliberate attack is an attack that you have planned in detail and which you execute according to a !! set of actions against an enemy who (hopefully) is relatively static. As a small unit leader, you probably won't execute a deliberate attack all by yourselves, with no external support. The techniques of fire and movement are very much the same for a deliberate attack as for a hasty attack. When you prepare for and conduct a deliberate attack, make sure that every member of your unit has been briefed and understands the plan at least two levels higher (e.g. fire team leaders need to understand both squad and platoon plans) and for units to the adjacent flanks.

I hope this lesson has been informative and interesting. As you go into battle remember the following motto of the US Infantry in the attack.

Find em !
Fix em !
Fight em !

and last but not least,

Finish em !