The main goal of the wolf hole is the addition of rough terrain - it functions as the hills do, to force enemies to stop (or slow down) and spend a turn exposed to our center artillery before coming out of the basin. Secondary goal is to bait cavalry into charging the 5th through it to kill a ton of horses and break their charge, if they're dumb enough to fall for it.
Again, assuming his offensive plans involve something other than hiding behind the hills. Which is a safe assumption to make.
Yeah, about that: We're fighting an enemy who "rarely uses cavalry for things other than screening and commits infantry only after lengthy artillery bombardment". Why are we committing resources solely to countering an aggressive cavalry push/infantry push from the flanks? I can see considering this while positioning, but I don't think it's useful for Village Outpost to commit a fifth of our resources to slowing an enemy across a particular pass.
And I don't think it's worth committing 60% of our resources to spoil a sightline and give the enemy slightly worse cover. As I said my PRIMARY goal is to make the eastern valley less useful as an attack vector. If it kills some horses that's a bonus, not the sole objective.
That hill ensures an western corridor enemy artillery can't reach from the starting position, something quite valuable. Hills provide absolute defence against artillery.
What's stopping them from just putting a cannon on the rampart, though.
This position is more exposed and vulnerable to cavalry charges from the side. They can do it, but in the process they expose infantry to our lines of fire, specifically from Rotholz.
He doesn't get a choice here, infantry cover is a necessity. Either he tries holding Sarnscheid, which means putting infantry/screening force into a artillery range, or we get a cavalry charge. It's a worthwile investment.
Not in the Sarnscheid corridor. That particular area offers very, very limited firelines from the eastern mountains. If he tries to screen using cavalry, we shoot the cavalry instead. Any cavalry trying to intercept us needs to cross medium range for our 2 artillery batteries in the middle, making this a favourable exchange. There are advantages from having 2 angles of fire.
It offers additional cover, though the potential cavalry attack on Sarnscheid AND limiting firepower against Rotholz makes this worth it. In truth, this is just there to force his hand: Assault Rotholz or see us slowly bomb your forces and eventually loose to a cavalry attack. The most efficient use of hills are next to other hills, since you block more firelines this way.
Your proposing bombarding Rotholz with no shootable screen elements. Unkess he wants only a single artillery on the easterm hill (3 W of Ottenburg), that isn't possible. Plus the artillery takes -80, so you really need mass if you want an actual softening effect. If he's willing to wait for one battery to shoot 4 times as long, this would be a valid critique, but I don't think that is likely.
Missed this but I think fundamentally where you and I disagree is on whether he's going to try to force the center, or use the flanks to infiltrate closer before starting his charge. I think both of our plans are flexible enough to handle either, it's just a question of details and where we're committing our immobile resources.
Just for the sake of me: How is this plan flexible enough to react? We are confined to a single firing position, with the planning involving nominal forces on the hill. This eastern position is in medium range of enemy artillery, giving him a target to bombard with the Rotholz making a cavalry charge on them non-viable. The hills will be abandoned, after which Trotha is completly free to move around. I'm only seeing a plan that puts our forces in one place, hoping the enemy volunteers to run into artillery range without a reason.
Apologies, I didn't include the picture in the plan vote. It's fixed now.
Well, if his sole plan is to march towards the middle with no regard for covering the flanks, he could deploy like this. Though I still think you need screening forces in this position, with the artillery unprotected on the flanks. Forces we can target.
The plan is flexible because we're putting units down that can fall back to the primary line easily. There's one tile where he can hit the 5th or the screens at medium range, and that's Rotholz Turm itself. If he posts up his HArt there before he begins advancing, fine, that position isn't really useful for him for any other purposes, and we have our cavalry able to approach from the south and try to gank it before his main push starts (since a Rotholz cannon cannot fire south). If he posts up during his main advance (which doesn't match his established tactics) then that's less optimal but we can still easily fall back after doing some attrition shots and we've got the wolf holes as plan B.
I've been very clear about the difference between the scenarios: The weakness in your plan is that Trotha has no options other than "long-range attritional bombardment" or "sucidal attack". Storming Rotholz deals -30 melee attacks. Not great, but it beats exhausting your munition supply. The difference is the options on the table, with Rotholz putting him on time pressure if he wants to move outside his deployment zone.
