Part 3: Qualitative Advantage 1

Part 3 is about winning when we have units of different dps, hp, speed or special abilities. In part one we assumed that all ships or space marines were identical. Wherever game we are in, however, we have different units with different stats. Artillery has much more dps than cavalry, but much less hit points. Grenadier units have both more hp and dps than normal line infantrymen. And so, for whatever setting the game takes place in. Also, some units move much faster than others. This part first explains how to use every unit's strengths in a sort of rock-scissors-paper approach to battling. After that, it talks about ways of increasing our troops dps or hp (and decreasing the enemy hp or dps) other than fighting. That's effects of exhaustion, morale, terrain, magic, etc..

This part mentions speed but initiative will be explained in a part of its own.

1 Speed for superiority in numbers

To be fast, we need to have better technology. From horses to trains, it works. A notable example is the Byzantine emperor Bazil II the Bulgarslayer's rescue of Aleppo from the Caliphate. In 995, while campaigning against medieval Bulgaria in the Balkans, he received news that the Saracens had attacked the empire's lands in what is today Syria. In order to get there on time, he equipped his entire army (40 000 men) with mules and managed to cross Anatolia in the staggering 16 days (and drove back the Fatimids' army, winning a 10 years peace). 

Also, we need to plan our soldiers' movements well. For instance, we should avoid stopping for things like foraging, instead trying to march wherever supplies are readily available. For instance,  on the Western Front in early WW2, the Germans used available gas stations to refuel tanks quickly. On the operational level, greater speed can also be used to cut off the enemy from his lines of communications but games generally don't simulate that so I won't elaborate.

Once we are faster, speed is there to help us concentrate troops more efficiently. If our units are identical to the enemy's but twice as fast, we can more easily focus our groups on one or two of his, staying away from the others.

Consider our four cavalry squadrons vs the enemy's infantry. Our cavalry attacks the leading eny company.

It takes time for the ones behind it to catch up and by the time they arrive we have destroyed it and moved our cavalry aside.

Next, the enemy moves west-southwest and we send 3 of our squadrons to attack the leading company while the fourth engages the remaining infantry at the back.

Our fourth squadron is broken but the enemy now has one less company.

Even if he tries to defend somewhere, if our usage of faster units is precise enough, we can still pick off his companies one by one, while staying out of others' range.


2 Maneuvering (terrain not considered)

'Tanking' and 'Artillery'

In RPG's, a tank is a player with lots of defense and hp but little damage. Warriors, paladins or whatever. Artillery, on the other hand are the fragile mages with massive damage but little hit points. When the group fights monsters, the tanks stay up front while the mages do the killing from behind. RTS's are much like that, from simpler ones like the C&C series to more engaging ones like the Total War series. Some have multiple weak, expendable guys, like the common orcs in BFME 2, others have hard-to kill costly guys, like mountain giants or knights in WarCraft3 TFT.

As a universal rule, extant across franchises, when the army is fighting, we always want to put the 'meat shield' troops in front and the archers/cannons/spellcasters behind, so that the latter destroy the enemy as much as they can while the meat shield units take the pounding. Even if our high-dps troops also have high dps, like heroes in BFME 2, we still want to bring some expendable troops to check enemy maneuvers or cover a possible retreat or just add to the army's dps.


Rock-Scissors-Paper

In strategy games, some units deal more dps to one kind of troops than another. Usually, spearmen deal increased damage to cavalry and cavalry deal increased damage to archers. Artillery, from catapults to cannons tends to be devastating to everything, while heavily armored troops, whether cataphracts or dismounted knights, are resistant to arrows. The game I know where this was most obvious is BFME 2, where archers->swordsmen->spearmen->cavalry->archers. What each unit is effective against depends on the game mechanics.

When directing the battle, then, we should always try to calculate our units' movement in such a way that our units are killing what they kill best, staying safe of what kills them. We should aim our cavalry at the enemy archers and avoid enemy spears at all costs. Our archers should be shooting at parts of the enemy army where his troops are close to each other and, if possible, we should not let enemy cavalry engage them, because of the rock-paper-scissors problem.

It is easy to do it if our units are faster. If we mount our archers on horses they will have no problem staying away from knights. An extreme example are the Mongols. When they first reached Europe, Western knights were eager to fight them hand-to-hand, as was normal. The Mongols, however, would keep their distance, firing arrows upon their pursuers until the pursuers were weakened, spread out, or shot down. Then, the Mongols would turn back and charge, having 'reduced the knights' dps and hp' to less than their own.

Flanks, Oblique Order and Crossing the T

In reality an infantry company or a cavalry squadron or whatever can deal the most damage frontally and is most armored in front. Units of modern line infantry are wider than they are deep to maximize the shot of the muskets. In such formations, only the left- or right-most soldiers can turn and shoot to the side.

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080929222924/uncyclopedia/images/b/b0/French_line_infantry.jpg

This means that if we position our troops to attack the narrow side of the enemy formation, we will have local superiority of numbers. This is the key benefit of attacking the enemy flanks, as well as the enemy weapons being usually aimed forwards and not the direction we are coming from.

   
28 friendly vs 51 eny space marines, illustrating the advantage in numbers in the contact point, even though the enemy has a larger army

Historically, it was cavalry that had the speed and maneuverability to do flank attacks like this.

This same principle is valid on the scale of armies, too. The Old Fritz used it to great success during his campaigns and it is called 'Oblique order.' Frederick would position his army perpendicular to the enemy's, enabling him to mass combat power to one side of the enemy force while those battalions in the enemy centre and other flank had to maneuver and waste time turning and going to the Prussians.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Battle_leuthen_shift.gif/626px-Battle_leuthen_shift.gif

Oblique order, in general, is the massing of combat power on one wing of the army, using our center and other wing as a distraction or to try to keep the enemy center/other flank busy.

http://schillerinstitute.org/strategic/2011/battle_leuthen/h1-Battle_of_Leuctra.jpg


It was also used in naval battles during the age of sail, under the name 'Crossing the T.' The ships of the 17th and 18th century had cannons on the side, but little or none dps capability on the front or back. Hence, if we positioned our ship to move in front of the enemy ship, we would bombard the enemy from one side while they have no cannons to return fire with.

http://guides.gamepressure.com/empiretotalwar/guide.asp?ID=7089


In general, this principle is useful for any enemy formation that is elongated. If we use faster units or calculate our movement well, it ensures we have numerical superiority – and with it greater combat power – in the area of contact with the enemy, which brings us closer to victory.


S=vt

Sun Tzu advised to attack the enemy's weak sides with our strong sides. This is probably what he meant. How to make sure our spears are always in the way of enemy cavalry or our cavalry always ? S=vt calculations of the troops' maneuvering if possible; if not – hasty guesses. In general, the more we calculate, the better we can position our troops and predict the enemy's movements. The more able will our archers and spearmen be to both fire on the enemy and quickly face enemy cavalry with spears. The less we calculate, the more we are relying on chance, which is like trying to perform suicide. In fact, calculating movements is so important in warfare I am bewildered why strategy games do support good ways to measure distances and unit speeds, forcing gamers to rely on judgment and the naked eye.

Sometimes, of course, we may have to fight enemy spearmen with our cavalry. To win such fights we need great superiority in numbers. Similarly, if we have a lot of units we can overcome the enemy's qualitative advantage. A group of knights can only beat so many units of archers before taking too much damage. Such cases are usually a better trade for the defender. More about combinations of factors in further parts.