Assaulting Camp Gibraltar: Breaching The Lines!

[Crux]

We've all played Camp Gibraltar. And most of us love it. However on that map the game play always seems to fall in one of two categories.

1) "The Meat Grinder" characterized by very static lines drawn on either side of Toll Station. High attrition rates for both teams, and pitched battle lines.

2) "Widespread Panic" or "Leapfrog", characterized by alternating zones of control.

If you're on the defensive team, 1) is good, and 2) is bad. If you're on offense though, the reverse is true. And this is why it is important to understand what causes these situations to evolve.

Toll Station is always the key on this map. But perhaps not in the way that you think it is. For the defense, stopping the assault at Toll Station is critical to keeping control of the game. For the assault, NOT capturing Toll Station is the key.

It sits there, so desolate and empty. It's almost asking to be capped. But if you get behind enemy lines and make it to Toll Station, just keep on walking. Don't stop until you have reached Ruins, or even better: EU Base.

If the assaulting team takes Harbor first, the natural place for the entire defensive team to spawn back at is Toll Station. And Toll Station is very well set up for defense. The narrow walkways, the 'roads' leading in - the setup creates beautiful lines of fire for the defenders, and is a true bottleneck for any attacking force. And then, even if you do manage to force your way through and take Toll Station, you run into exactly the same problem pushing south to Central Camp, as the gates at Toll Station create a second bottleneck.




We all know that anytime you have static battle lines with an entrenched defense, those conditions favor the attackers (noting that there is no ability to disengage or flank in these circumstances). Therefore as the assault team, we must avoid this scenario. How do we do so?

The critical point here is that there MUST NOT be a sequential capturing of points from the PAC Base onwards. Doing so allows the creation of static defensive lines, which turns the map into a war of attrition. How do we avoid this? By not taking control of harbor before the other points. This is absolutely critical. Taking control of harbor is permissible if it happens simultaneously with the capture of one of the three rear points: Central Camp, Ruins or EU Base.

Easier said than done though, right? Not with a little teamwork. This only works if the majority of the defense's troops are pulled forward to Harbor. Which means there must be the appearance of a genuine assault on Harbor to force them forwards. With 32 man teams, this can be accomplished by assigning 4 of 5 squads to "assault" Harbor. In reality, we want them pushing forward to the building line and taking a more defensive position that doesn't allow the PAC team a high kill rate. Their goal is to draw attention, not get killed.

While this happens, a single squad should penetrate through the East side of the map. If at all possible, their goal is to avoid any and all contact with the enemy. I suppose ideally you'd be looking at a squad of recon all running cloaked. In reality though, a mixture of Assault and Recon is probably best. Why? If the team commits to keeping moving, and you have 2-3 dedicated medics rezzing as you move, ideally you can push forward even if you are discovered by a few troops as you go.

Even then, the immediate assumption of people is that you are pushing for Toll Booth. Don't let that be the case. Force your way forward past Toll Booth and keep moving. Ideally EU Base would be your target, but in reality you're probably setting yourself up for trouble going that deeply. I think in the perfect scenario, 3 of the 6 man squad stops at Ruins and attempts a capture there, while the remaining 3 push on to EU Base. If you're lucky, you'll get them both. If nothing else, the opposing commander cannot end your sneak attack with a single round of artillery.



Assault Route for team sneaking behind enemy lines

This leads to one obvious conclusion: stopping the enemy at or before Toll Booth is key to winning as defense. Forget Harbor - all you need to do there is delay the enemy long enough to set up your defenses on the north side of Toll Booth. From there, it's like clubbing large, camo-wearing baby seals with an automatic rifle

Comments welcome!

[Lyramion]

On no other server than TG I have lived thru such intense battles on Gibraltar where you are not able to penetrate Tollstation for the whole game.

One key to win can be to get the "frontal" control of tollstation without getting close to the flag. Just people that are set up to imediately rifle rocket the heads that might pop up on tollstation. Making the defenders unable to rack up any real kills from inside while slowly crushing them from the outside.

Beeing attacker there is usually one or two squads that try to get tollstation without any real strategy costing you a lot of tickets.

[ultrablue]

Nice write up, Crux. Where there situations are easily identified by the seasoned vets, it's important for newer guys to know of them and why their SLs choose actions apart from cap-and-go tactics.
In the scenario where PAC holds harbor and EU fortifies Toll Station, I personally opt to rocketing the entrenched enemies from roof tops.

[Fehmart]

It might sound kinda amateurish, but on the assault, buggy rushes before the mines get too thick can be useful for breaking through. I SL'd a squad last night where the first buggy was slowed by pedestrian traffic (and a couple motion mines), but the second buggy managed to punch through to Toll Station's gates, where we began our back flag capping.

I think this was only really possible because the EU team CO wasn't on the ball. We should have been OS'd at any of the flags we captured, and enemy squad response should have been heavier.

Crux, what you mentioned about the infiltrating squad sounded pretty interesting. A squad composed of half recons with camo and half assaults could break through early on, with the assaults running decoy on one catwalk while the recons make their move on the opposite catwalk/pathway.

[chaf3d]

Originally Posted by Fehmart

Crux, what you mentioned about the infiltrating squad sounded pretty interesting. A squad composed of half recons with camo and half assaults could break through early on, with the assaults running decoy on one catwalk while the recons make their move on the opposite catwalk/pathway.

Splitting the squad up like that could be dangerous. I was on his Squad last night when we attempted this, and it worked. The medics kept reviving everyone, and the whole squad made it through before anything real could be done.

Regarding the OS, I think the best thing about avoiding the OS it to have one guy run to the flag, and everyone else take cover under the tunnels. E CO OS's, guy runs and takes cover, and when OS passes, whole squad moves in on flag.

I regards to defending Toll Station FROM the attackering FAV rushing, if possible, grab an FAV from the PAC team who just left one laying around (hoped out from the motion mines before they blew it up), and place it infront of the south gate at Toll. Keep a guy in it, and this will block the PAC from rushing past.

In regards to attacking, I agree with Crux, where the best route is to the east. West, on approach to Harbor, you have the narrowing, and the ladder your squad must climb. Then you have that nice big open road to the front of Toll, where your corridor past Toll have 2-3 Explosive barrels, plus obstacles, PLUS 2-3 (if Toll is manned already) 1-2 support units watching the West Catwalks. Around to the east seems to be the most effective way around. Both up top and below.

[InfernoBLT11]

I was able to win the game on Gibraltar with pure killing when playing PAC. Our commander was smart enough to realize any attemp to break through is suicidal so he order my squad to set up a hard point and do the mowing and reviving cycle.

Spearhead team can only work during the first five minutes and very hard to pull of when the EU really want to dig in at toll station. However, the stalemate can be reversed by experienced commanders. By pulling most of the team back to habor, the EU will get aggressive and come out to claim their flag. Exploiting that window of opportunity is key as both the walker and the car need to make a mad dash for toll station.

[Elite_Master]

Excellent write-up.. good ideas, but I think that it is limited in two respects - if it does not happen early it probably will not work because eventually either Harbor is taken and getting past Toll Station becomes a nightmare, or Harbor is not taken and the defense becomes entrenched there and is a nightmare to get past. Secondly, on maps with 32 total this should work most of the time but on maps with greater than 32 people total it will not work so often because even early on there are still dudes who set up camp at Toll Station and they can see you trying to sneak past Toll Station from miles away (aka snipers in the towers).. also, camo does not work very well anymore because more and more dudes are squading up and they have netbat so you will be three little diamonds running together which is a perfect target for nade, APMs, rockets..etc.
All in all though, a very good strategy that should work most of the time on maps with fewer than about 40 people total and if done right at the beginning. - although I would suggest not going all recon,assault and/or dividing up the squad.. better to get a mix crew where the SL has a recon drone so you guys can avoid defenders on the way.. another idea is that central camp can be a decent stop IF you don't see a very dense number of defenders.. I mean, once you are past toll station, you are behind enemy lines already and at least at Central you can attack the flag from up top on the catwalk and then cream anyone coming up the stairs to defend.. whereas Ruins and EU base is a disadvantage if a defending squad comes in on you trying to cap the flag (and the greater distance you try to run the higher the chances the squad will get discovered and killed).. not to mention the defending team has a huge problem on their hands once Central goes down because spawners can then decide to go attack Toll Station OR Ruins

[Exploding_Silver]

What's really interesting is how Gilbrator has changed over the last several weeks. 3 weeks ago an assault up the middle (like in my video) was reasonably effective, now its not.

Now Gilbrator is a battle of rifle rockets and revives.

If you were to bust through then as Fehmart says the buggy is probably the best at the moment. Turbo gets you through the motion mines 2 out of 3 times. people dont seem to put down emp mines much anymore. The real deadly anti-buggy weapon is the APM, it kills the driver only and how many times is that the squad leader. When I buggy i often bail SE of toll flag and go through the ajar door then get my squad to spawn.

If PAC was to not assault toll and just settled in for the long range shoot out then I think PAC have the advantage

[jonan_]

I love rockets on gibralter. It has gotten somewhat predictable where people are going to be hiding so I fire a few rockets over there to find out and presto 2 or 3 kills for me. With that said we should always remember to keep our distances from each other. I can't tell you how many times I have been following behind my tightly packed squad and three rockets come and take them all out. I revive them of course but still try to spread out some. Sorry got a little off topic there

[Zoraster]

i think it's simply astounding the amount the gameplay has changed in this game since i started playing TG in late november/early december.

Number one is that everyone pretty much has a kit or two completely to almost completely unlocked. When I started playing here, there was usually only one or two (if you were lucky) guys in a squad with motion mines unlocked. Now it's very surprising when a TG member doesn't have motion mines, and most of the time he'll have a pilium as well. I remember being really surprised when someone would revive me and I'd end up with a pilium in my hands. Now if I end up with an engineer kit after being revived, I'd say two thirds of the time it's the pilium rather than the default AT gun.

It's certainly not limited to engineer though: when I first started playing, rockets were the exclusive domain of bommando and a couple of other guys. Now virtually anyone who plays assault with me uses rockets -- and uses them well. That one change has changed the game play DRASTICALLY as the ability to stay under cover for any period of time is reduced or eliminated completely.

But it's not just the kit unlocks that have changed the game play here. It used to be pretty rare that a squad leader would use anything other than a squad beacon. Now I'd say that about 50% of the time the squad leader uses the drone. It's not just that the drone is good, but squad leaders have learned that squad beacons, as useful as they are sometimes, break up squads and are generally less effective than having people spawn in on the squad leader.

A lot of this may have to do with my own progression as a player, but I don't think it's limited to it. The game has changed a lot over the past couple of months. To some extent I think it's really revealed the limitations of this game as a tactical enterprise, but on the other hand I think our squad play has become better and better.

[Dark Viper]

Pssss, you can always go outside the wall, run around to the back, and ride a drone up and over if it's a deadlock at toll station. You didn't hear it from me.

Well at least until 1.2 comes out.

[Bommando]

Originally Posted by Dark Viper

Pssss, you can always go outside the wall, run around to the back, and ride a drone up and over if it's a deadlock at toll station. You didn't hear it from me.

Well at least until 1.2 comes out.

So, when are you releasing Dark Viper's handy little book of exploits? In soft and hard cover editions complete with USB key pre-loaded with hacks

[Zoopy_T]

I've seen a couple times when the PAC takes harbour and after a while of EU defending toll station that EU pushes out and reclaims harbour. At this time usually the PAC side doesn't have enough time to reclaim the harbour as long as EU still defends the buggy rushes from getting through Toll Station.

[Sir_Brass]

Then again, a nice thick string of motion mines on each lane at Toll will take out anything simply because you can't get through it without hitting one.

Last night while SLing, I mis-spawned (not enough time to click on the right spawn location and then click done before it auto-spawned me back at PAC base.....and guess who forgot to lay down an SLSB), and was offered a buggy ride to where I had already marked for the squad to group at (outside west wall of toll). I'd given EXPLICIT orders to NOT assault into toll, only to severely harass and wipe out any EU that came within our weapons LOS or blast radii. Well, said SM instead drove me (I was on turret) INTO toll acting like he was going try a bust through.

Needless to say, we got wiped out. Thankfully no one tried to spawn on me during that time.

The point of this, besides that I was very much pissed off at that SM (his excuse was that he'd missed the location we were to go to, and just plowed on through Eastern toll lane.....riiiiiiight) is that he was going on buggy nitrous when he plowed through toll and Motion mines still got him. Someone on EU had been smart and placed ALL of their motion mines in a dense cluster that covered every inch of the lane, so no matter where the buggy went to, it would hit at least one.

[sc1ence]

the tatcics on other servers simply dont apply here. (if you remember what life was like before you found TG.)

the tatcic of fast buggy, teamroadkills be damned, right up the middle to toll and to the back bases is simply giving yourself up to certain death.

what i find is that motion mines are ALLWAYS in place on toll, you have been spotted and are on minimap, and the walker is right there if you try to advance past toll on buggy.


so you hop out on foot at toll. there are allways 5-10 troops waiting at toll for that first push. you hop out of your buggy at toll and are imiidiatly under fire. after that first push, people advance to defend harbor and only the most dedicated stay at toll to defend. it is in those minutes just after the first buggy assault on toll where you get your opportunity.

have the squadleader hide for 1 min after first push just outside of toll. then get squad to spawn on them.

get a beacon on a roof to the east or west side of toll. have half your squad push towards the toll flag. 1 on roof to cover beacon, the other two throwing themselves at the flag and trying to pick off other defenders. then get the squadleader and the rest of the squad to the next deepest flag while the toll defense is distracted. have the advancing squad be all medic infantry using good advancing tactics so they dont all get taken out by apm or walker fire.

have the advancing half of your squad move along the upper walkways.

under ideal conditions, have the commander designate 2 squads, one for toll distraction, the other for deep penitration. regardless, you need to set up a staging area just outside of toll for 1-2 minutes, then push with toll distraction and deep penetration.

just my 2 cents.