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We're about to come to the end of this first set of articles on basic battle tactics, so in honor of all who serve their nation honorably around the world, here is a wonderful piece to inspire you and encourage your spirit, courtesy of the band and pipers of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (formerly the Scots Greys):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tEdH0bjjR8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR-csWS1bcM&feature=related

If only they understood these things in the eU...well, enough of that. On to the lesson. Today we are going to discuss the defense, and specifically how you as a small unit leader go about planning, preparing and executing a defensive mission. When you are attacking, you have the initiative – you have a plan, and you're really just trying to make it work. By contrast, in the defense, you are trying to anticipate the enemy's actions and to thwart them at the greatest cost to the enemy, and the least cost to your own force. You have to plan ahead, and you have to think on your feet. It is critical that you understand not only what you mission is, but why you are doing that mission – so it is important that you think out of the box, observe what is going around you, to your front, flanks and rear. You need to be aggressive. Seize every opportunity you have to exploit the enemy's mistakes – as long as you stay within the constraints of your mission. Understanding not only your orders, but the intention behind those orders enables you to exercise flexibility and do the right thing without specific instructions.

Let me give a couple of examples from the world of sports. In the game of soccer, defenses are strong, and they require the players to act on the field in a way that prevents the opposing side from scoring a goal. If the defenders focus only on stealing the ball, they can get caught out of position, and fail to protect the goal; on the other hand, if they don't play aggressively enough and get the ball back, or kick it out of their own territory, they will spend the entire game on their own turf, they will get worn out, and eventually their opponents will score. This is pretty much what happened to Germany against Spain, after they had lost Mueller. To defend properly, you need to stay in your position and defend the territory you are assigned – and also help your teammates out, covering all the gaps in the zone. Even though your immediate mission may be to hold a piece of terrain until ordered otherwise, the ultimate goal is to regain the initiative, even if just for then short time needed to restore your strength. There will be specific times and places where a counterattack is appropriate, and you are never too weak to do so. The old saying in the Wehrmacht was, “if you have two men left, hold with one and counterattack with the other." Even if the enemy is so much stronger that you lose your entire unit, go down fighting to the last.

Now there are two basic forms of defense. We call these mobile defense and area defense. As you might suspect, area defense focuses on controlling terrain and territory, particularly what we call “key terrain” - positions and places from which you can fight at an advantage, and from which you can control the surrounding area. Mobile defense focuses on destroying the attacking force by maneuvering to positions of advantage, but not getting pinned down in any one position. Most defenses combine elements of area and mobile defense, and as you might imagine, different systems are better at one or the other. The infantry will be the backbone of any strong area defense, but tanks and helicopters may be given missions to defend larger areas and use their mobility to deny the enemy access to and control over these areas. Oftentimes, tanks and helicopters will use tactics similar to the mobile defense when given an area defense mission, using their speed to counterattack and set up ambushes. This is always why you will often form reserves based on armored and combat aviation units.

Depth is an important concept to keep in mind when defending. You measure depth by time, by space, and by resources. You can think of depth as a kind of bank account, where you have three different currencies – time, space, resources. You can trade space for time, or spend resources to gain time. This is especially important in the eRep game mechanic, which halts the battle at a given. Likewise with space – the victory conditions are based on controlling hex tiles – your portion of meeting those victory conditions requires you to give ground grudgingly – but consciously – to preserve your force, both to continue this battle and to be ready for the next. When your account runs dry, and you have no more time, no more space and no more forces, you're through. You can't do anything more because you've run out of depth. Oftentimes, you have to resort to a mobile defense when you have space to sacrifice, but are short on forces. Conversely, in many situations, your conduct of an area defense requires you to hold ground because you don't have much to spare, but your forces are adequate to the job.

Look at the battlefield at a quiet moment in the action. You have the deployment zone, into which the attacker can move freely, but you cannot. This differs from real life, because in real life, we extend our depth into the enemy's terrority and fight him there before he even starts his attack. If there are no islands in your territory that the enemy controls, then the line drawn on the map between the deployment zone and the hexes you control would be what we call the “forward line of own troops” or FLOT. At higher levels, the area you are defended will be divided as follows:

1. A security zone or covering force area
2. The main battle area
3. The rear area.

Let's start with the main battle area. This is the specific area where you intend to defend and defeat the enemy. Imagine that you are defending from west to east, and the area you control is 18 hexes deep , starting with the (03, xx) column. As you analyze the mission, the terrain and the enemy situation, you can make out that the best defensive terrain runs along a river line that goes north-south along the (08, xx) column. So that you set up your defenses to the east of the river. Very well. So everything west of the river will be your covering force area. Lets say your capital is at (14, 10). Unless you really intend to fight in your capital (this of course will depend on METT-TS), it would be best to defend well forward, say to the 12, yy) column. You have now defined the three areas mentioned above. Your main battle area extends from the river west to the (12, yy) column. Your covering force area extends west from the river to the enemy's deployment zone, and your rear area extends from the (13, yy) east to the edge of the battlefield.

We have already begun a planning process which I will define below – what should happen within your chain of command is that each link in the chain will be assigned a mission and an area of operations in which to perform that mission. Some units will be assigned missions in the covering force area, some in the main battle area, some even in the rear area. Once you have been assigned your mission and area of operations, here's what you do:

1. Analyze enemy avenues of approach. You need to examine the terrain in and around your area of responsibility to project where and how the enemy can come at you. If the enemy knows what he is doing and is well organized, you can predict how fast he can move into and through you area of responsibility, and what types of units will favor what kinds of terrain. Look for movement corridors of the terrain types that are advantageous to the enemy – forest lines for infantry, clear or hilly terrain for helicopters and tanks, even mountainous terrain for those units that can enter those hexes. When you consider the size of force that can move along a movement corridor and deploy to fight effectively, you have defined an avenue of approach. For example a two hex corridor of clear hexes with some hilly terrain is an idea tank platoon avenue of approach. Try to imagine how the enemy will move naturally along these avenues to stay in advantageous terrain

2 Locate key terrain that dominates or controls these avenues of approach. You want to select your best positions first, the positions that give you the most advantage at the point where you will first make contact with the enemy. These are the positions you need to organize your defense around, the positions you need to retain in order to maneuver in depth, counterattack and repel the attacker. You need to cover all enemy avenues of approach with fire, from adjacent hexes capable of mutual support. Don't just put your entire force in a single line – organize your position in depth from the forward edge of the battle area (FEBA) all the way to the rear boundary. You need to position your reserves to defend key terrain in depth, to reinforce your forwardmost positions, and to counterattack when the opportunity presents itself.

3. Identify obstacles that block enemy avenues of approach and cover them with fire as well. This is important because if you do not cover an obstacle the enemy will find a way to either get through it (with the correctly armed unit) – or bypass it.


4. Plan your movement and fires (attacks) in detail. Now you are going to put your plan together – You need to make sure that all your subordinates know what their primary sectors of fire area, and when to shift from one sector to another. This may cause them to shift positions. Primary fighting positions are where they will normally locate with 1 or 2 hexes as their primary sector of fire (hexes adjacent to their position, that they are responsible to engage the enemy. If the enemy does not show up in their primary sector of fire, they may shift to a secondary sector, or move to a supplemental position from which to engage the enemy. While alternate positions cover the same sector of fire as primary positions, supplemental positions cover other sectors, often along a secondary avenue of approach. You always want to achieve interlocking fires from different hexes – this affords mutual support, and prevents the enemy from concentrating on a single position. You also need to coordinate with your neighbors to the left and right of your position(s). Focusing only on your own sector and your own unit can leave a gap or seam in the defense that the enemy can exploit.

5. Assign positions and control measures. If you can do so, I recommend taking a screen capture of the battle area and put it into Power Point or Office Presentation so that you can draw a sketch of your unit boundaries and positions. When you assign a unit boundary, remember to assign responsbility for an avenue approach to a single unit, or make sure that adjacent units belong to the same higher unit (if possible) and operate from mutually supporting positions, with interlocking fields of fire. When it is all said and done, individual weapons should be arrayed no more than two hexes apart, but can certainly be closer, even stacked in places where you want to mount a strong defense. Under normal conditions, and due to the ranges and movement rates of each platform, I would recommend the following frontages:

Infantry Fire Team (4 men): 1-2 hexes (adjacent)
Infantry Squad (10 men): 3-4 hexes
Tank Section 1-2 hexes
Tank Platoon: 2-4 hexes
Helicopter Flight: 4-8 hexes
Artillery Platoon (4 guns): 2-4 hexes
Artillery Section (2 guns) 1-2 hexes

Some final words on positioning before we go on to an example. Your most favorable situation – and particularly if you are defending the terrain type that is most advantageous to your unit – is one in which the enemy is concentrated in a single hex and your force has converging fires from three or more adjacent hexes. Now the game mechanics are such that it is a problem to adopt such a good blocking position and stay their, since when your turn comes around, the enemy is still in this vulnerable hex, you will have to attack to engage him and if you win, you will occupy the single hex with everyone who is in on the attack. So – keeping in mind the principle of economy of force, you do want to go kill the enemy and service all the targets he presents to you. But be careful against getting lured out of a good defensive position onto poor terrain because you were undisciplined or greedy. Take the measure of your opponent and of yourself, and you should know what to do.

The other point to be made is that by forming a concave position around an avenue of approach, to as to create an ambush/kill zone (the official US Army term is “engagement area”) your own position will be most vulnerable where the concavity turns convex to the enemy's direction. This is inevitable when you position is not just a straight line of hexes – what you should try and do is turn those concave positions into strongpoints based on terrain favorable to the weapons and units you assign to occupy them.

Okay – let's do a quick example – you have a flight of helicopters assigned to defend a bridge at (08, 1😎. While you would like to have some ground troops around to help secure the bridge, for now it is just you and you have to hold the bridge for at least four turns until reinforcements arrive. An enemy tank company is moving on a six hex front with platoons in combat columns four hexes from the bridge. What do you do ?

Now, there a good many ways to handle this situation, and I won't exhaust them all here. You do have a distinct advantage because you know the tanks have to cross that bridge, and since you can move freely back and forth across the river, you can set up anywhere. In this case, I would position the entire flight initially at (06, 1😎 – two hexes from the bridge – and force that tank company to concentrate for an attack. He will have to slow down to do so – if he comes and attacks piecemeal with his lead platoon in the open, you've got him and scratch two to four tanks. DO NOT STAY THERE AND ATTACK. On your movement turn, move three hexes to the hex exiting the bridge at (09, 19) The tanks cannot catch you in the second turn. In your third turn, leave one aircraft – choose your strongest player with the most gold at (09, 19) and move the others to adjacent hexes on the near side of the bridge. Since the tanks must all cross the bridge hex to get on the other side of the river, the must attack your chopper at (09,19), otherwise you will get a free shot. When attacked, go berserk and take as many of the tanks down as you can. What is left of them will occupy (09,19) if they win and take your chopper off the board. You are not in the U-shaped ambush we talked about. Let's say that the enemy tank company has lost five tanks in previous engagements, and now has 9 tanks left. If all three remaining helicopters go berserk, you do have a fair chance of destroying his force altogether. Another approach would be attack with two helicopters and move the remaining chopper over the river next to the bridge out of contact with the tanks. In this later case, you are continuing the mobile defense, you are continuing to cover the obstacle with fire, and your reinforcements will probably have to clean up the tanks remaining on your side of the river if you lost more than two helicopters. Now, of course, your wounded crews can tank up with gold and come back in, but so can the enemy tankers, so that would be a wash.

I hope this article has given you an appreciation of defensive tactics and the challenge of fighting outnumbered and winning. Keep in mind that battle is a contest of wills, a psychological struggle as well as a physical one. I've seen and participated in lots of situations where as the defender, I was on my last legs, but managed – just barely – to hang onto the position I was assigned to defend. Less frequently, the enemy walked right into a trap that I had set for him – leaving my weak units and vulnerable spots untouched. In either case, a win is a win, and the mission is accomplished.