On the Utility and Use of Marines

[asleepathewheel]

wow, awesome

[Cort Haus]

:applause:

[vmxa1]

It is an fun read, but I have to wonder why any subterfuge like that would go unnoticed? With your landmass completely covered, would you not have calvs moving around to shadow the transports?

I can see where you could land your units, but a massive couterattack should follow before they can do all that much damage, should it not?

[Catt]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I can see where you could land your units, but a massive couterattack should follow before they can do all that much damage, should it not?

Marines, vmxa1, marines (in this marine-centric thread).

The marines take a coastal city. In the same turn, transports full of cav move into the coastal city and unload without loss of movement point. Cavs then use the native captured rails and city cultural radius to take one undefended "behind-the-lines" city after another.

Catt

[vmxa1]

I know that, but either you have to bring a lot of marines or you fail to take the city. If you have mostly marines, there are not that many calv to cover much land.

[vmxa1]

BTW I am not attempting to point to any failures, only to see if I am following it and can learn something. So please point out all the holes in my question.

I was first wondering how many transports are we talking about?
If I saw a single transport, I eye ball it, but don't panic. If I see a second batch, I get very worried. If any of these have more than one transport I am going to get proactive.

In the example, the invaded party had a great ally and the invader was an outcast of sorts. So once I see a stack of transports with 4 in it, I would annouce that if it comes in range of my bombers, it gets hit.

IOW a stack of 4 is a threat, if a few singles can land at the same turn that is a threat.

[asleepathewheel]

So really the problem was that Tibi failed to recognize the +1 move? thus not defending the insertion city as well as he should have? Shuffling defenders primarily to the cities he thought would be attacked, not realizing another was susceptible? Thus there was only a token defense in place, not enough to counter a transport of marines?

How many units were defending this city verses the northern cities? A substantial difference?

[Tiberius]

IIRC 2 infantries, as opposed to 4 or 5 in the other, N-E cities. I obviously didn't realize that this particular city could be attacked in only one turn.

Not only that, but the other cities were also protected by radar towers.

[MattPilot]

... and thats exactly why i avoid building cities on the coast

[Hot_Enamel]

vxma1:
I had, for a long time, always had ships along (and in) Tibi's border.
When transports became available, I moved empty stacks of them along his border. At one stage, there was a stack of 7-8 transports.

I was intentionally doing this so that Tibi would get "used to" seeing harmless stacks of transports sailing around his border.

As soon as I had amphibious warfare and enough marines, I loaded them on transports and moved them into position. Then I attacked the very next turn.

Only Tibi can say if he was worried or not.
I dont think anyone in this PBEM has built a bomber yet.
I had 4 transports that could attack Asyut.
I also had a stack of 3 empty transports further North near our border. I was hoping this would also convince Tibi that if I was to attack, the invasion point would be further North.

asleepathewheel:
I did not investigate Asyut before I attacked.
Perhaps if I did, maybe I would of waited for more marines.

I would of thought 2 infantrymen is a pretty good defense. I was expecting only 1 of course. Tibi had a wall of units along his entire coast to stop an invasion for a long time. I was hoping that wall was still there, and his cities were left with only minimal defenses.

For the record:
My first marine killed his first infantryman outright.
It only took 5 more marines to kill the second infantryman.
Tibi did get bad RNG results on the marine invasion.
But then I lost a lot of cav trying to take New Thebes.

Did Tibi not take into account the +1 move for Magellans?
He will have to answer that. I suspect he did not.
And it was the only reason why I was able to pull this off and reach Asyut.

And a question from me:
Tibi, I thought Asyut was covered by a radar tower ?
Radar towers dont have to be right next to the city right?
They can be 2 tiles away ?
RxC

Regs.

[vmxa1]

Hot_Enamel thanks for the info. If no bombers, then I would expect to have lots of ships to tag along to force at least beating a few to attack.

Since C3C I have switched to get Flight to stop marines by bombing them before they reach shores. so I figured that anyone having Marines would have flight, sorry.

Of course prior to C3C bombers were not as effective, but could at least make it hard to defeat any ships blockading the city.

So do you think it will be a long time before he allows people to park transports in plain view?

[Tiberius]

The turn before the attack:

[Tiberius]

The PowerGraph now:

[Hot_Enamel]

Lucky I had Magellans



And Asyut did have a radar tower right ?

[Hot_Enamel]

I think that drop in the powergraph was caused by your SOD being assimilated into the glorious Arabian Empire 2 turns later.

I did not kill enough units with the marine invasion.


Note the "Sleeping Giant" Imtoops has had the biggest jump.
Perhaps we should align against him Tibi ???

[Kuciwalker]

*speechless*

[notyoueither]

Ahh. So not all of his interior cities were empty. How many were defended?

Second question, who will now keep at least 1 inf per city regardless of position once anyone gets near Marines (or an earlier defender if Berzerks are out there)?

[notyoueither]

PS. This is exactly what I have been expecting ever since I first started playing around with Marines and finding that they seem to have a bonus when attacking from ship.

I wish any of my PBEMs had gotten this far. Congrats H_E, you have demonstrated what is possible in a very emphatic manner.

[Theseus]

Again, simply great. I used to read a journal called the Military History Quarterly, which had great and graphic dissections of significant past battles / campaigns... this would fit right in.

In case I missed it: H_E, you had how many Marines and Cavs to work with?

[Hot_Enamel]

Originally posted by Theseus
In case I missed it: H_E, you had how many Marines and Cavs to work with?

I'd like to say... but that would be giving away how many marines I have left.
It used only 6 to take the city. (Posted somewhere above)


And if Imtoops knows how many marines I have left, he might get worried about all my transports moving towards his coast.

[MattPilot]

so how many units in total did you lose during the total operation?

Don't know if this were possible in your case, but i'd probably would of kept one small insignificant city, garrison my remaining units in there, and let the enemy lose a couple of his men to it. I know i'd try to take it back, cause i'd be pretty pissed off

IF he couldn't take it back, you got a nice future outpost to launch operations from (rush a airport or something). If he does try to take it back though, you can assume (depending on your spy reports & by the numbers he would send into your territory), that the boarder cities have reduced strengths to fight for the captured city. So in the next turn, you could launch a land invasion across the boarder. Though only if he doesn't launch a counter attack across the boarder himself. However, if he doesn't have enough units to guard all his cities in the first place, how will he counter attack & gaurd his remaining cities ( a basic spy report would be useful here) ? And another guess here is, that if he does decide to counterattack across the boarder, the probability of a counterattack on the only remaining 'captured' city is unlikely, so a rushed airport wouldn't do to much harm


Just som thoughts.

[Hot_Enamel]

I did not take any infantry with me.
The 4 galleys were loaded with cavalry, Marines & a couple of combat settlers.

I used every one of my cavalry...And lost many taking New Thebes.
Some had a movement left, and they retreated back onto the transport.

Everything that got left behind, Tibi destroyed on his turn.

By the look of the stack that Tibi sent over on the next turn.. I had no chance of keeping any city.
Plus he had a ROP with Imtoops, who has since joined the war against me.
It was designed to be a hit and run attack anyway.

Note that when I disbanded the coastal city of Asyut, I lost the 3 transports that unloaded troops into the city.
I kept 1 transport out of the city which picked up any cavalry survivors.

[MattPilot]

ah, i see. Well it was pure genius.

Did you keep the slave workers or did you disband them too? I'd probably make similar raids now just for the slaves .

**edit .. So how much did you lose after his counterattack? Give us the total operation losses - its nothing he doesn't already know

[steven8r]

Originally posted by Hot_Enamel I did not take any infantry with me.
The 4 galleys were loaded with cavalry, Marines & a couple of combat settlers.

Hot_Enamel, Where did Yamama come from? Did you bring along a Settler with your invasion force?

Was it a 'culture gap' filler to allow you RR access to Edfu or something? Is that what you meant by 'Combat Settlers'?
I would like to hear more on this subject please.

Just currious.

Viscious Man, Viscious!

Steven

[Hot_Enamel]

@MattPilot
No slaves. In order to use Tibi's railroad network, which allows my cavalry to skip to each city, I had to install a governor in each city I captured.
Then I disbanded each city when I was finished, resulting in no slaves.

Total units:
4 galleys full....(29 combat units, 3 settlers)
At the end of the turn, I had 1 galley containing 8 units left. (2 settlers & 6 combat units)

So...total loss of life for me was 23 combat units.
I am not giving the mix.....because I dont want my opponents to know if the 6 survivors are leftover marines or cavalry which had a movement left.


steven8r

Yes, Yes, Yes & Yes

Congratulations for picking that up.

Perhaps I should of disbanded or renamed Yamama before taking the pic...

[steven8r]

Well H_E, one more question.

I assume by 'Galley' that you are meaning 'Transport'. OK, so it's just a semantics issue. My question is, are you using a mod to give Transports a capacity of 8? IIRC, Transports in C3C hold only 6. I could be wrong, but that's what I remember.

Thanks again, and again, that's got to be the single largest, most devastating 1-turn attack that I've beheld. I'm just glad I wasn't the recipient.

Sorry Tiberius. I really feel for you man.

Steven

[Risa]

There's no C3C one year ago.

[MattPilot]

gotta agree with steven - never even knew something on this scale was possible.

@Hot_Enamel

usually when i abandon (not raze) cities with more than 6 citizens, i end up with a few workers.

Anyhow, can you tell us about his counter attack? Did he just kick you out of his empire, or did he also cross over the boarder? I'm a curious man

[Hot_Enamel]

Per Risa.

We started this PBEM in December 02.
It is PTW.
Transports (not galleys ) carry 8

[SirOsis]

Most excellent move. H_E has me wondering about our Islands PBEM. lol. What do you have in store for me there?

Good to see the use of marines can be most deadly in the right hands.