COH After Action Reports

[BrerRabbit~SPARTA~]

If you've had a particularly interesting or epic COH battle or perhaps learned some new tactic or trick how about sharing it here!

 

Last night Cylawyer, Maj3stic, LeeMarvin (a buddy of mine), and myself played the Germans against three Russian AI and after three long hours we were victorious. The only lesson I learned from it was that when facing the Soviets in open terrain its probably best to go with the defensive doctrine; my 88s kept them from over running my sector.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky-zdHMNFNM

Edited February 8, 2011 by BrerRabbit~SPARTA~

[Rocky]

I had a truly epic 1 v 1 battle not too long ago. I didn;t notice I was down to 2 VPs left only, and he still had the full amount. Somehow I turned the game around and won, he must have been mad as hell LOL.

[BrerRabbit~SPARTA~]

Germans beat a divided allied command - some lessons can be learned

 

Cylawyer, MH6, Hali, and Halo fall to me and three AI (two easy, one normal). The reasons for their loss were largely not the reasons they stated after the fact. They actually came quite close to defeating me and my AI allies twice, and were in a potentially dominant position for much of the match. So why the loss? Here's what I saw from the opposing side, and I think there are lessons for new players to COH.

 

1. Little coordination in attacks. The allies did not communicate and did not effectively coordinate their attacks, using the strengths of their different doctrines to overwhelm me. Instead I was able to assist the AI in separate engagements. Also the Allied attacks came at intervals long enough apart to allow me to sure up defenses.

 

2. Blobs. When they did attack and press hard, they did so in "blobs" of armor and/or troops. Armor or infantry when tightly packed dont move well and are extremely vulnerable air attack, artillery attack, and attack on the flanks. It can be demanding to micro manage individual tanks and infantry units, but it is worth the effort to deploy your units individually rather than just grouping them in one big mob.

 

3. The rush. Rushing into the enemy base with a blob of armor can be effective against the AI (especially easy AI), but with a human player to aid the AI this strategy is more than likely to fail - which it did twice in our game. A steady and more methodical advance with a variety of of units (armor, infantry, scouts, mortars, etc.) is much more likely to be successful and suffer fewer losses.

 

4. "His X is fluking us up!!!!" Whatever the "X" is (88s, air attacks, rockets, infantry, etc etc.) its best to learn once from your mistake and not repeat it. If 88s are tearing into your armor, then scout their locations with cheap/light units and take them out with artillery or infantry. Dont just keep sending in tanks against them! In our match my anti-tank air attacks kept tearing up their armor blobs and despite this they never changed tactics! What could have been done? A. build mobile AA units (American half tracks upgraded with quad .50s) and B. stop using the blobs.

 

5. Dont be timid. The fog of war in the game can be intimidating in itself, as a commander can always imagine more horrible things hidden in the unseen areas of the map than there are in reality. In our match Id say at least 2 out of 4 allied armies were hanging well back letting the other two do the attacking. If you want to be more defensive overall this is fine, but you must have a forward defense - hanging out in or close to your home base is just a recipe for disaster.

[Halli~SPARTA~]

Yep he whooped us good.

 

I seen where we only had 1/3rd of the map hence 1/3rd of the supply which held me back but it was still quite fun.

[BrerRabbit~SPARTA~]

0:05~0:07 thats Cy, MH6, Hali and Halo as POWs. The others insisted that Halo have his own cell.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ShXCvBedI&feature=related

Edited February 15, 2011 by BrerRabbit~SPARTA~

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

I am sure all of these things are true, but another factor is experience. You play a lot, exploring the doctrines and abilities of the different "factions", these guys havent had a chance to do that yet.

[EMT~SPARTA~]

Fight ahead!!!! me vs rabit. I see nothing but gg's

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Last night Floyd and I took on 3 normal Wermacht at Montherme. We used the rush principal to subdue them to give us more time to capture points. Things went well at first, but then our games desynched. In Floyds version my base was lost and then they focused everything on him.

 

In my version Floyds AI lost its base, I had built a pretty solid defence of machine guns and 57mm Antitank guns and managed to hold the hun back. I could hold my base but could not break out. I sent a lot of engineers out covered by Caliope barrages to rebuild the adjoining bridge and after caliope'ing Floyds base many time to clear it of enemy I managed to rebuild it, twice. The second time Floyds AI swarmed and captured a bunch of zones. I sent 3 M18's, 1 caliope, 1 57mm and 1 engineer squad to capture and OP all the northern zones then attacked their base (eventually adding a second Caliope and a Pershing). The front shifted many times and many attempts to secure the 2 mainland bases failed but eventually the base attacks thinned their ranks and with just a Pershing, an M18 and an M8 I set about subduing the last base and at 0300 I won.

That was a 4.5 hour battle

 

Unfortunately it counts as a loss and I was demoted. If we hadnt desynched Floyd would not have lost because when we lose a base we rebuild in the allied territory until we can recover the base, which has happened in the past.