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Manpower Bleed Tips and Explanation

24 Jan 2019, 04:24 AM
#1
avatar of PhosphorusPheonix

Posts: 48

Hello,
I know what manpower bleed is and some aspects of why it's important, but let's just start from the very basics and go from there:

My Issue

Whenever I'm playing a game, I always focus so heavily on munitions and fuel that sometimes I nearly forget to preserve individual units (in squads) and save my manpower, even in unwinnable battles just to buy time for more fuel/munitions. I have been trying to use mortars, light vehicles, and occasionally snipers to cause a lot of manpower bleed in a lot of games, but I just feel like I don't have the hang of it.

Questions

  • What is manpower bleed?
  • Why is manpower bleed and preserving manpower important?
  • How important is preserving manpower compared to fuel/munitions throughout the game in your opinion?
  • What are some good ways to cause manpower bleed to your opponent throughout the game?
  • If I end up having a lot of excess manpower, is it better to buy more infantry squads or wait and save it for later? (vague, I know)
  • Are mortars really worth getting for their cost if your opponent isn't using hmg or stationary structures? (having it sit around and shooting units for slow manpower bleed)
  • What other advice or explanation(s) would you give concerning manpower in general or manpower bleed?

*This isn't really faction specific and general/vague.
24 Jan 2019, 07:36 AM
#2
avatar of Gbpirate
Senior Editor Badge

Posts: 1150

1.
Overall, vaguely, manpower bleed is you losing models/units in excess to your opponent. It's also, in general, the manpower spent on reinforcing squads, rebuilding lost units, or structures (bunkers, fighting positions, caches, etc.) lost. Those are, I think, the two ways that it can be defined.

Manpower bleed is one of the issues that, in the long term, contribute to defeat and, more often than not, don't win games decisively.

2.
Manpower bleed is important in the game because the player that is suffering from it most is required to
1) spend more resources on being combat-effective/maintaining territory (ergo generating resources)
2) wait before reaching the next tech level

There are other things that result from mp bleed (a snow-ball effect, if you will) and are more esoteric or harder to define; there's the psychological aspect of losing more engagements (which is a typical indicator of manpower bleed) and being "outplayed"; there's the veterancy effect where your opponent's squads get veterancy faster because giving damage gives more xp than taking it; there's VP drain.

3.
Preserving your manpower is important almost always
1) Retreating from an unwinnable fight is almost always recommended. Some exceptions include
a) to prevent the capture/decapture of a point
b) to capture a point (usually a vp, especially early game)
c) attempting to kill an enemy unit (usually a vehicle)
2) Preserving manpower is important because it prevents you from taking unnecessary losses.
Sure, you will lose engagements here or there, but if you trade more or less equally then you should be in a good spot, even if you lose a territory point. It's almost always better to wipe a squad and lose a point than lose a squad and hold a point (the very late game, of course, or where VPs are low for either side are some clear and constant exceptions).

4.
Causing manpower bleed
I've always thought of manpower bleed in the way I've talked about it above. To me, it comes down to winning engagements. There are some ways to do that:
1) cover
a) be behind superior cover at the most advantageous range
b) be behind equal cover at the most advantageous range
c) create your own cover
d) deny your enemy cover
i) put mines behind cover!
ii) use flamethrowers — they even have damage buff vs. heavy cover
iii) use indirect fire — green cover modifier applies from where the unit that fired the round comes from (it's advantageous to flank with a mortar squad...which doesn't really make sense but that's how the game works. But don't flank with a mortar squad).

2) minimizing your opponent's damage output
Basically, I've thought about this from the early game perspective of Wehrmacht and Soviets: Basically, you want to employ MGs or a sniper to increase the likelihood of you winning an engagements by reducing your opponent's DPS. MGs suppress and pin (reducing and eliminating damage, respectively) whereas snipers carve off a portion of DPS with every shot that connects.

3) building mines
mines win games. Apart from taking out key units, they render others less effective in combat and require players to reinforce their squad, also spending manpower. The Soviets have a distinct advantage in this regard because they have multiple infantry squads that can lay mines. While they don't have the advantage of having AT mines, their general purpose mine is good because it will hit anything. The trip wire flare is good (that's why it's had a lot of nerfs). They used to have an even larger advantage with demos, where a mine + demo combo could take out anything up to and including a Panzer IV.

4) Using vehicles
Vehicles take HP damage in exchange for dealing manpower damage (whenever a model is killed). Getting a scout car as whatever faction may be good not even for the purpose of killing units but for the tactical abilities it gets (which is an added bonus and not really necessary for the point I'm making). It also may force your opponent to heavily invest in anti-tank units which may play into your favor because they have one unit taking up popcap (and also manpower income) on a unit that is a hard counter to just one minor, annoying unit.

5.
A good way to spend excess manpower is to build a cache. Typically, a munitions cache is the most useful as good unit preservation leads to mass amounts of fuel buildup over time. You can also get a second (although probably not a third) engineer squad to provide some utility and, perhaps, repair vehicles if you find yourself with a lot of them! The ability for extra utility (extra sweeper/flamer/AT/CQB squad) is great.

6.
Mortars are great if you can find the time and the use. Against squads that need to stay in cover to be combat effective (ostruppen, infantry sections, etc.) they can be useful. Friendly fire is also a confusing issue but I do not think that mortars cause much damage to your own soldiers so, even in the event of a rush, mortaring your own squad isn't too bad. Mortars are also good for their smoke. You can smoke any long range unit/squad whether it be AT, an LMG squad, or an MG, it will surely help. It can also cover retreating units/tanks with smoke. The US have the advantage of having WP on some of their units which does damage and makes mopping up on retreat much easier.


7.
Manpower bleed is something, like all parts of this game, easy to quantify the direct cost of but also contributes to many other things. It's easy (in theory) to look at the models killed and tally up the manpower lost. But other factors such as the cost of teching up, the loss of territory, the loss of VPs, the loss a key vehicle or squad, etc. are all factors that mp bleed takes into account. There are other factors, too, like army composition and manpower upkeep to consider too.


I still remember a game I played where I never lost much of my army and there was never one single point where I lost everything. I just got outplayed and bled out, unable to hold ground, unable to tech up. I just got outplayed and out-bled.

When watching casts of games, it's often easy to tell who's winning. Often times MP bleed is a result of players continually losing engagements so, when you're spectating, it can be easy to see who is winning and who isn't. Sometimes, though, there is a dramatic reversal and the game gets turned on its head. This can also be attributed to MP bleed in the early/mid game when a player gets out a light vehicle or medium tank and there is no contest on the field. Sometimes, sure, it's a strategic mistake by a player that decided to over-invest in a tier or get something they didn't need, but often times that first light vehicle is decided by map control or heavy MP losses that made getting a vehicle an impracticality for the not-so-visibly losing player.
24 Jan 2019, 10:58 AM
#3
avatar of hypersenator

Posts: 9

Whoa, dats helluva post. Thank you for such structured answer
24 Jan 2019, 19:47 PM
#4
avatar of Tobis
Senior Strategist Badge
Donator 11

Posts: 2307 | Subs: 4

I also want to point out that individual territory points are really not worth fighting for in the early game. Losing 3 models on a gren squad is 90 manpower, not even close to worth holding a standard territory point for 2 whole minutes at 6 fuel and 10 muni. You should be prioritizing damaging the enemy manpower and taking cutoffs/ high resources.

Pick engagements to fight the enemy where you have an advantage, don't get sucked into a fight when you can avoid it for something worth so little. Rear echelon and combat engineers are a good example. They are very weak in combat, not even worth the manpower to fight without support. Better to go find somewhere else to cap than lose manpower.
25 Jan 2019, 08:57 AM
#5
avatar of PhosphorusPheonix

Posts: 48

1.
Overall, vaguely, manpower bleed is you losing models/units in excess to your opponent. It's also, in general, the manpower spent on reinforcing squads, rebuilding lost units, or structures (bunkers, fighting positions, caches, etc.) lost. Those are, I think, the two ways that it can be defined.


Wow, thank you for such a thorough and helpful post! It was posted quite quickly too.

I like how you mentioned that losing engagements will lead to higher manpower bleed.

There is one thing I wanted to ask though concerning mines. I know some people intentionally place mines at the edge of points in the direction that enemy troops will most likely come from. I have seen this being done early, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea over weapon upgrades. Is it really worth trading 30 munitions for 1 or 2 men from a squad? I typically place mines for vehicles or flanks.
25 Jan 2019, 08:59 AM
#6
avatar of PhosphorusPheonix

Posts: 48

jump backJump back to quoted post24 Jan 2019, 19:47 PMTobis
I also want to point out that individual territory points are really not worth fighting for in the early game. Losing 3 models on a gren squad is 90 manpower, not even close to worth holding a standard territory point for 2 whole minutes at 6 fuel and 10 muni. You should be prioritizing damaging the enemy manpower and taking cutoffs/ high resources.

Pick engagements to fight the enemy where you have an advantage, don't get sucked into a fight when you can avoid it for something worth so little. Rear echelon and combat engineers are a good example. They are very weak in combat, not even worth the manpower to fight without support. Better to go find somewhere else to cap than lose manpower.


I see. What about for munitions or fuel points? Would you say it's worth delaying a munitions/fuel point decap at the cost of losing models?
8 Feb 2019, 12:00 PM
#7
avatar of CHNimitz

Posts: 3

Hi, I read the post and I have a question. What does trip wire flare from SU do? I barely use it and no idea.
8 Feb 2019, 13:29 PM
#8
avatar of RollingStone

Posts: 173

Hi, I read the post and I have a question. What does trip wire flare from SU do? I barely use it and no idea.


It deals 80 damage to any infantry squad (instakilling of 1 model) and gives vision on area where planted for 8 seconds. Can be triggered by both infatnry models and armor. Useful in some situation, especially versus OST, because of 4-man squads.

A lot of good opportunities comes when you combine it with other explosives - plant it on top of demochardge somewhere on road and you got heavy AT-mine. Plant it on your regular mine, and you will see if enemy still moving forward after hitting mine.
Also, I'm not entierly sure, but you can plant one of these on both doors in houses, preventing any squads from spawning inside - if they try to leave, then flare will wipe whole unit, because they clamped so hard.
8 Feb 2019, 14:05 PM
#9
avatar of EtherealDragon

Posts: 1890 | Subs: 1



Also, I'm not entierly sure, but you can plant one of these on both doors in houses, preventing any squads from spawning inside - if they try to leave, then flare will wipe whole unit, because they clamped so hard.


This used to be the case but they fixed it a long time ago because it was super abusive. Now Flare mines are capped at killing 1 model regardless of clumping. Though it's worth pointing out that it's worth it to mine doorways if you know you're playing against infiltration squads or just in general because of how likely it is to get triggered. Flare mines are also pretty cost efficient since for 10 Munitions you can reduce a 4 man's squad DPS by 25% and give you an upper hand in engagements. Manpower bleed wise if the flare mine hits an elite squad the that can be 30 MP damage which is really good- especially considering that some Soviet commanders can tend to float Munis. Just start getting into the habit of plopping down mines as your are capping a point with Conscripts and the like.
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