A Swedish-built submarine of the Singapore Navy
Rulebook, Section III
Movement Orders
III. Movement Orders
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In both the movement-only phases and the build-and-move phases of a turn, players can move any or all of their military units. It is recommended that players group their units into task forces for ease of order processing, but they are free to move units between these task forces as often as they wish. However, each turn a player must inform the moderators where a unit is being moved from and where it is being moved to that turn. Whether a position is at peace or war affects some of the mechanics of movement.
III. A. Peacetime
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In peacetime, players can freely move units within their own borders. Also, if players have agreements with allies or other friendly powers, they may move units freely within the borders of those nations as well. There are several defined missions for peacetime movements.
III. A. 1. Guarding Borders
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The most common peacetime role for ground and air units is to guard one's borders. You must define the specific border (with which neighboring position) or segment of border (what part of that border) which those units will guard. Any invasion coming over that border will be resisted with all units designated as border guards on that border. If one of your neighbors also has troops guarding that border, you will get some information on what they have there.
III. A. 2. Reconnaissance Patrols
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To get more information on enemy force dispositions, you can order some of your forces to patrol a designated area. Planes, ships, and subs are best at doing reconnaissance patrols, but land units guarding borders can also patrol. However, the amount of information you can glean from within your own land borders is small. Also remember, that if your units can see enemy units, the enemy units can see your units. Unless you give specific orders otherwise, patrolling units do not attack enemy units, and unless the enemy units have orders otherwise, they do not attack your units. Stealth aircraft and M-Drive submarines are not seen by enemy units that do not possess Anti-Stealth radar or BGL sensors, respectively, and they are also not seen by your patrols unless you possess the proper technology. Beware, because some players do not like to be spied on in this manner, and if your units cross their airspace or invade their lands or territorial waters, enemy units MAY have orders to shoot first and ask questions later, and in such cases, patrolling units are usually automatically destroyed. Recon (R) Aircraft get the most accurate data on enemy land units and planes on runways, while Maritime Patrol aircraft (M) get the most accurate data on enemy ships.
III. A. 3. Training Exercises
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Another common peacetime mission is Training Exercises. There are three basic types of training exercises. Standard Training Exercises have little effect towards raising the quality of your units, but do help to prevent a lowering of your overall quality due to building or buying large numbers of new low-quality units. Advanced Training Exercises are basically Standard Exercises that you spend extra cash points to make more intensive and effective. Spending this cash pays for extra use of decoys and live-fire exercises, as well as the fuel, ammo, maintenance, and troop pay raises for longer and more intensive training programs. These can only be run in build-and-move phases of a turn cycle, because of the need to spend cash. Run enough of these, and you may raise the overall "training" component of your quality score for that branch of your service. Nations with larger militaries need to spend more cash to make an increase in their quality, and it is more expensive to go from a 4 to a 5 than it is to go from a 2 to a 3. The third type of training exercise is the Multinational Training Exercise. A big part of the game is forming alliances to fight a common foe, and this usually entails sending units from more than one position to fight alongside each other in the same battle. If troops from those two nations have never trained together or seldom train together, those troops fight at a disadvantage. If troops from those two nations have NEVER trained together, all forces in that battle fight at the quality of the LOWEST quality of the nations involved. If troops have trained only once, or have not trained together in the last 3 turn cycles, they higher-quality nation's units fight at a -1 penalty. If they have trained more than once, and in the last 3 turn cycles, all units fight at their natural quality levels. These joint training exercises can also work to raise the quality of lower-quality nations that regularly exercise with higher-quality allied powers.
III. A. 4. Internal Security
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In positions with unpopular governments, or that have a "Rebel" penalty, or that have recently annexed new territory through conquest, another common peacetime mission is Internal Security. Units, especially ground units, can be used as internal police forces or on "Anti-Rebel Patrol" in troublesome districts. There is no set formula for this, but if you have several divisions of ground forces and a few aircraft tasked to this mission in an area, you can prevent organized uprising by rebel forces in that region that affect your economy. Few or no units…and you might have to fight a war against an organized rebel army, or even face secession by an entire region. Naval Units have no effect on rebels, and air units have little effect. Light Infantry, Marines, and Paratroop units are best at fighting rebels, since rebels rarely have tanks for your Armor to fight, and most anti-rebel actions are either in mountains, jungle, or urban slums where tanks and APC's have little room to maneuver.
III. A. 5. Logistics
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In peacetime, you may freely move as many units as you want, as far as you want, and as often as you want, within your own borders, including to outlying islands and even portions of your empire separated by stretches of enemy-held lands. You may also move as many ground units as far and as often as you want within the territory of friendly allies that share a land border with some portion of your empire, but you must have their permission to do so, and they will be informed of any units moving through their lands. Naval units can move to any portion of the world's oceans, but moving through choke points such as the Straits of Malacca or the Panama Canal will let other nations bordering these narrow bodies of water know that your ships are there. Unless otherwise ordered by those nations, your units will be allowed to pass peacefully as long as no combat is taking place nearby. Air units can move to any area in the world, as long as you have been given landing rights in enough location to allow your planes to stop and refuel along the way and at their destination. In moving land units to friendly lands overseas, you can move as many units as you want, but they cannot engage in combat the same turn as they move. Wartime has special logistics rules, defined below.
III. B. Wartime
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When you attack another player, or another player attacks you, War is declared. There are different movement rules in Wartime. You can attack or defend, or try to run away. Running away is not normally recommended.
III. B. 1. Offense
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Whenever you give your troops orders to attack another player's units or invade their territory, you are taking an offensive action. Certain bonuses and handicaps apply when making an attack. Paratroops and Airmobile Cavalry forces get a +1 bonus to their attack rating when making airborne assaults, for example. Other individual unit bonuses are covered in the Appendix on Military Units. The details of how combat works can be found in Section V, Combat. This section only deals with the mechanics of ordering units to attack.
III. B. 1. a. Land
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Invading an enemy territory is the single most common form of attack, and is the object of almost all battles in the game and in real life. The basic land battle, ground units fighting ground units, rarely happens, however. Most land battles also have an aerial component, as aircraft vie for air superiority, then provide air support to their nation's ground forces. To make an attack, take an existing ground task force and change it's "status" to "Invading X", where X is the enemy territory you want to invade. The ground task force in question MUST have been in place at the beginning of your turn, or you suffer a 25% penalty to their combat rating because units do not have time to properly deploy into attack posture before the battle. Aircraft and Paratroop divisions do not have to be in place beforehand, however.
III. B. 1. b. Naval
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Attacking an enemy fleet is usually done as a prelude to an amphibious invasion, or as a way to prevent an amphibious invasion, but pure naval attacks do sometimes occur. To attack a fleet, you have to know where it is, either through espionage, reconnaissance patrols, or through diplomatic skullduggery. If you have prior knowledge of a fleet's location through one of these methods, and it's actually there when you attack, you get a x2 bonus to attack. If you simply give a fleet orders to attack any ships of a certain player or group of players in a given area, there is no offensive bonus. In modern naval combat, he who shoots first, is often the only one to shoot at all. To order a naval attack, you simply order an existing task force to move into an area, and change it's status to "attacking enemy fleets in X", where X is the body of water that you are fighting over. Any carrier planes in an enemy fleet automatically rise to defend their fleet if it is attacked. Land-based planes may attack fleets, either by themselves or in conjunction with a friendly fleet's carrier planes. If you have previous knowledge of an enemy's fleet movements near your own coastline, especially if they plan to attempt an amphibious attack, you can attack it with your PTM's and other fast attack craft, in which case such small craft get a +2 bonus to their AsuW rating in addition to the x2 first-strike bonus.
III. B. 1. c. Air
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Pure air-only attacks are rare in the game, but they do occasionally happen. Usually aircraft attack in support of other ground or naval units. In all air attacks, you must define which planes are the "Escort" and which are the "Strike Package". Planes in the "Escort" use their AAW scores to attack enemy aircraft, and cannot engage surface targets that turn. Planes in the "Strike Package" use their ASuW scores to attack ground units or ships. In the special case of Air Strikes purely on enemy aircraft, the "Strike Package" uses its ASuW scores to destroy enemy planes on the ground, but this only works if it is a surprise attack. Surprise attacks are only possible if the enemy being attacked has no Aircraft in that area assigned to "Patrol" the border you are attacking over and no AEW planes in the area. In Surprise Attacks, only 50% of enemy MF, OF, and FA (or Naval equivalents such as NF operating from land bases) rise to defend the airfield. All other enemy aircraft are caught on the ground, and a portion of them are destroyed according to the number of planes you assign to the "Strike Package". The "Escort" must defeat the enemy fighters that rise in defense and win at least partial Air Superiority to allow the Strike Package to hit the enemy runways. If no Surprise attack is achieved, ALL enemy planes rise to fight the Escort. In all non-surprise cases, the Escort must win at least a 1:1 ratio to allow the Strike Package to hit its assigned target. If this ratio is not achieved, the Strike Package returns home. Further details are given in the Combat section below.
III. B. 1. d. Combined Arms
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Combined arms operations, such as Amphibious Invasions, or naval and ground battles with air support, require that the units involved be in the same task force. In Amphibious Invasions, you must declare a specific invasion beach or beaches, and you must also specify which ships (if any) will be assigned to shore bombardment. Ships carrying out Shore Bombardment may not attack other units that turn. Only Marines may attempt amphibious invasions, and only one Marine per PHIB.
III. B. 1. e. Special Cases
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A variety of special tactics are possible in attacks. You can define which army units will lead an assault, if you fear enemy use of tactical nuclear weapons, and hold the bulk of your forces for a second-wave attack. You can have small groups of units sacrifice themselves to draw the enemy into battle before hitting them with a larger force in a flanking maneuver. You can have your ships, planes, and subs hit an enemy fleet from different directions to divide their defenses and prevent escape. You can drop Paratroops and Airmobile Cavalry divisions behind enemy lines to prevent a withdrawal while your Armored divisions kill the enemy units. You can use a turn of air strikes to defeat an enemy air force, then dedicate all your planes to support for a ground war in the following turn. You can use feints and decoy thrusts to waste enemy firepower while the real threat moves into position. Before attempting such special tactics, consult the moderators to see what the effect would be, and to obtain advice on how to execute these maneuvers.
III. B. 2. Defense
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Deployments for defense once war is declared are only slightly different from peacetime moves. If you are expecting an attack, you can define your response beforehand, such as a withdrawal, counter-attack, or a stubborn defense of every inch of ground, holding to the last man and the last bullet.
III. B. 2. a. Land
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You can defend a border right on the border, which will minimize the penetration into your territory by an invading enemy, but lead to higher casualties if you lose the battle. Or, you can deploy further back from the border and execute a counter-attack. This makes it harder for the enemy to get a good picture of your forces from reconnaissance patrols, and allows more of your forces to withdraw and escape if you lose, but also gives makes the battle an offense-vs.-offense battle, reducing your defensive bonus from x2 to x1.5, due to the fact that your forces are no longer fighting from defensive positions. A combination of these tactics is a rear-area defensive line, having the units actually in dug-in defensive positions but not right up at the border. This hides your units from enemy border patrols, but surprises their invading spearheads with a later defense in depth.
III. B. 2. b. Naval
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Defensive tactics rarely work in naval combat, but there are things you can do. If you expect an amphibious assault, you can decide to move your fleet in front of that coastline and attempt to prevent a landing, and move aircraft to nearby bases with orders to attack any enemy fleet. Or, you can keep your fleet out of sight, and only attack after the landing to strand enemy marines on the beach and destroy their supplies and reinforcements. Surprise counterattacks by FAC and aircraft are particularly effective against amphibious fleets. You can hide FAC behind islands and in fjords and inlets, but if the enemy has aircraft support, that may not work very well. Placement of naval mines and shore defenses can be crucial. If the odds are overwhelmingly against you, you can even order your ships to flee to a neutral port to avoid destruction, and concentrate on defeating any amphibious assault with ground troops and hope you survive the war so your fleet can return. If your lands are all conquered but your ships survive in some neutral port, they may be taken over and absorbed into the fleet of that neutral power.
III. B. 2. c. Air
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Air defense is very important, since air superiority can often be the difference between defeat and victory. Fighter aircraft are best for defense, but concentrations of SAM's and AA guns can also contribute greatly. The best tactic is often to mass your aircraft in a single location, but if a more powerful enemy also masses their planes against you, you could lose everything. A good compromise is to mass only your fighters, and send your bombers and attack planes to some rear area, where they will be safe. If all else fails, you could sell those planes to a neutral power in exchange for their sending other forces to come to your aid.
III. B. 2. d. Combined Arms
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Merely placing ground forces on a border, or ships along a coast, is rarely enough. Border forces need air support, and so do ships. When defending against an amphibious invasion, always put enough troops on the shore to defeat any marines that do manage to land. And, it's a good idea to keep some forces behind the lines to defeat enemy paratroops or airmobile cavalry forces that may try to surround and trap your front-line forces.
III. B. 2. e. Special Cases
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There are several special tactics you can use in defensive warfare. You can arrange your troops on a border to be strong in all but a few places, and place nuclear land mines in the gaps. When enemy forces attack, they will be funneled into the weak points in your lines, and walk into an atomic trap. You can withdraw all but a light screening force from a border and give orders to your nuclear forces to target any invading armored spearheads. You can even place demolition charges at dams and flood river valleys to create a barrier to invading enemy troops.
III. B. 3. Logistics
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In peacetime, there are few restrictions on what you can move where, but in wartime, logistics become important. When enemy subs may be lurking in your waters, you can't ship troops around on civilian transport. When enemy planes may be patrolling your skies, you can't use chartered airliners to move troops. You still can move as many ground units as you like within your own borders, as long as there is a continuous overland path to the destination. Aircraft can still move as usual. The main change is in moving ground units overseas or to outlying islands. In wartime, you can only move troops with PHIB units or transport planes, or by spending extra cash to charter civilian transport and compensate the civilian owners for the risk of possibly losing their ships and planes. For 1 cash point, you can hire enough civilian transport to re-deploy 1 division anywhere in the world. If not performing an amphibious invasion, a PHIB can carry 4 ground units of any type for redeployments in the same hemisphere, or 2 units for redeployments more than halfway around the world. Each group of 10 transports can transport 1 division anywhere in the world. Airmobile Cavalry divisions can re-deploy themselves in their own helicopters anywhere in the same hemisphere, but they can't cross any gap of more than 500 miles without a refueling stop. Armored Divisions ONLY can be re-deployed by ship, since most transports can't carry large tanks. If you don't have a coast, you need to first move units to a friendly seaport before they can embark on ships. If you are using your PHIB units for an amphibious assault, each can only drop off one unit for redeployment, and only on the way to their destination. Re-deployed units can only engage in DEFENSIVE combat the same turn that they are re-deployed, they must rest before engaging in offensive combat.
III. B. 4. Rebellions
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If you are facing an organized rebellion, you deploy units for attack within your own borders to fight the rebels. Organized rebellions and secessionist movements have actual units, and you have to defeat them like any other enemy unit. Once these units are defeated, you should keep large numbers of troops in the area for a few turns afterward to prevent further uprisings, and whatever you did to provoke the rebellion, it's a good idea to stop doing it. Or, you could find some way to appease the citizens so they don't start another rebellion. Spending cash points on propaganda and bribes works well.
