Frits AAR

Q: How do you deal with a one on one squad confrontation across an
obstacle
(river in this case) with both sides in cover. 

A: Tough. Both you and your opponent have good cover. The obstacle slow
movement and can become a killing zone if you try to cross it to close
assault. Plus you give the defender a free shot if you are even a little
slow in the crossing. 

Solutions: 
1) artillery. 
2) Split your SAW from the rest of your team in the hopes of generating
more
suppressions to allow a CA.
3) Withdraw to attempt to draw the enemy or to allow you the liberty of
choosing another attack angle that does not involve river crossing
(cross
downstream and move to engage).
4) The best: Get another squad in to help you suppress and damage the
target
squad. It takes a lot of FP in heavy jungle cover, esp if target goes
IP. 

Q: How much terrain? 

A: Depends on the game. Infantry games benefit from cover. For interest,
I
try to keep cover no closer than 4" apart, and no further than about 9".
This gives places for infantry to "bound". If you leave some open space,
it
gives vehicles a place to operate, and for long range weapon fire. 

Q: Artillery?

A: Some light mortars, once and a while a battery of light or medium
arty (3
gun). Not often, and usually only in assault or defence of fixed
strongpoints. If your troops have D8 partial-hardshell (like I rate my
FSE
and OUDF) and then get IP or in some cover, then arty isn't that bad to
deal
with. If they are in D4 fatigues in the open, they get ripped apart. 

Keep up the good work. Try some of the scenarios from the back of the
book,
they are reasonably well balanced and don't have huge amounts of arty
involved. Plus, don't underrate the quality shift of being veterans....
means you miss fewer comms/transfer rolls, you survive morale better AND
you
shoot better and further. That's a big step. Quality IS stargrunt. Also,
keep in mind that a defence of superior terrain should not be assaulted
with
less than 1.5:1 odds (in wargaming) but in real life that'd be 3:1 or
more.
Static defenses can be very grim to assault - defender has cover and
fire
initiative, you have to move through the open. If you used any overwatch
or
reaction fire, its even tougher to assault. Figure in mines/CDMs,
artillery
registered in defence, emplaced heavy weapons, and you can really need a
rather revolting amount of effort to dig out the target. Oft times,
these
emplaced forces are bypassed.