Badly outnumbered

[kato13]

kcdusk 11-19-2005, 07:03 PM What normally happens IYC when you come up against a force where you are badly outnumbered? OK, maybe you try to avoid them ... but i'm sure theres been times where you've taken a small force on only to find there is more than you thought or they get reinforced quickly and you are taken by surprise. What happens then?


Do you normally try and slug it out, hoping your elite PCs can hold off the novice NPC's or at least make them retreat?


Or do you flee, and end up having them chase you. How does that normally play out?


I'm just interested to know how this situation plays out with others.

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thefusilier 11-20-2005, 05:33 AM I've found that running is the worst option. You have a harder time coordinating a new defense with them right behind you, if someone gets hit you have to leave them or adolpt another poorly planned defense, you can't make use of your support weapons etc.


A small group unless in the very open can hold a larger group with good firepower, defense coordination, luck and use of cover.

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DeaconR 11-20-2005, 09:27 AM It depends in part on what degree you're outnumbered by, what kind of resources those outnumbering you have and what kind of abilities and resources you have to face them.


Like, are these an armed or semi armed mob? Are they a well trained force of Soviet regulars with apcs and light armor? Are they a city's militia?


Where is this taking place? Forest, road, town?


Do you have the option of quietly withdrawing in the hopes that they don't know you are around?


Apart from these questions I believe that there are some good manuals available for basic infantry tactics. In fact Loonz site has a couple of them online, if you haven't taken a look at that. There are a lot of answers to the question you asked I think.


Basically though these are the options as far as I know: fighting retreat, run for your life, take up a defensive position, counterattack.


The thing about taking up a defensive position btw is that you need to know a few things, like "will we be relieved" "do we have the choice to leave instead" etc. Because there would be the danger of the enemy having the possibility of bringing in their own reinforcements and you being entirely cut off.


The idea of a fighting retreat is that you deploy so as to hold back the enemy attack long enough for your unit to pull back and get out of there.


However, sometimes you might just run for it.


As for a counterattack, there are many situations where that could work well. A good example of this is at the Battle of Gettsyburg. At one of the key positions on Little Round Top, Colonel Joshua Chamberlain finds that he is running low on ammunition and that the enemy attacking his position are still coming. He orders a counterattack that folds up their flank and forces them to retreat.

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Targan 11-20-2005, 11:19 PM Another option would be to mimic the immediate action drills used by many special forces units including the Australian SAS, responding to a superior force with such a large volume of accurate fire that the enemy is misled into thinking their opposition is numerically larger than it really is. The opposing force is then likely to advance more carefully, perhaps allowing the smaller group time to organise a fighting withdrawal or send a team on a flanking maneouver and provide an opportunity to take out someone important like the enemy commander. Or perhaps one element of the smaller force can arc up with some heavy firepower to draw attention while another team sets up some sort of ambush, maybe using claymores or something like that. Then the diversionary team withdraws past the ambush site, and whamo! - when the enemy advances they get a bucketload of high velocity ball bearings for their trouble. If the smaller force has artillery available that would be nice too, but that aint common in T:2000.

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