Imagine trench warfare. Static lines of defense, that don`t move. There`s infantry in the trenches that either hold or don`t hold their position. Either they repel the enemy moves or they don`t. That`s it.

This is part of a more conventional and plastic defense. All forces are concentrated with little depth on the front. This has the advantage that the offensive force has a harder time breaching the defense line, because its stronger. However, past a breach, there is little stopping the offensive.

This is a good strategy for a stronger or even ground force. However very difficult to maintain for a smaller force (See Ukraine war), but especially in asymmetric warfare.

A better strategy for the smaller but defending force, is Elastic Defense.

Here you don`t form a strong, distinct front line. Instead the units are placed in depth. Hence the alternative name Defense in Depth. Fast units that can retreat swiftly are placed in covered positions, deal as much damage as possible and retreat. This process repeats until the enemy is slowly attritioned from multiple fights in different places as they advance with mild losses but repeatingly.

In Wargame EE the AI is cheating deployment points heavily. They concentrate their force, specifically tanks or helicopters in one big "unstoppable" push. In combination with their AI deployment points bonus, it`s very difficult, although not impossible, to maintain a solid front line.

Therefore, Elastic Defense is one, if not the best, strategy to counter the AI. The disadvantage to this strategy is, that a lot of micro management is required, which makes it difficult to defend against a concentrated force in one place whilst simultaneously attack in another place.

Fast, powerful units such as Leopards and Marder AA`s are required for Elastic Defense.

Use fast units with a decent or large amount of ammunition. Avoid infantry as they are slow and run out of rockets and missiles (AT and AA) very quickly. Supplying your troops with fuel and munitions is difficult when they are constantly on the move despite the depth. That is unless you master this strategy and become able to do unit rotations as well. You are however, a bit relieved from repairs, as you avoid taking hits. As you see, this strategy reduces the amount of active logistics.

These Leopards must redeploy now!
Use very small groups or single units in cover. Utilize strongly armored but fast units such as the Leopard 2 and the Abrams on the front. They will be taking a few shots from enemy tanks, as soon as they land close to the tanks, you must redeploy them further back. No matter how much damage they dealt to the enemy. These units are very expensive and can`t be risked. In the picture above, you see these leopards a bit too close to the enemy and fallen cover. This was a risky position and only possible duo to the exceeding speed of the Leopard. Avoid such positions and prefer tree lines, hedges and forests in front of big open fields.

This is about the maximum damage you can deal, before your units need to redeploy. Without any losses on your side. When a line is being held, such "tank graveyards" become much bigger. But what use does it have, to destroy 50 enemy tanks, when you also loose all your expensive Units, that held their line and got destroyed. Soon the enemy comes with more tanks or helicopters and you have bare to no force left in this place. Your front line becomes overstretched. As you can see on the right, in this moment we have 1376 Points and the enemy only 123 Points. Only because i forgot about two helicopters. I finished this game with no further losses, and no ground unit losses.

Additionally you can move nearby, otherwise inactive units, to deal additional damage from the sides, reducing the depth of the defense and reducing the chance of getting flanked, although the AI isn`t that smart, it rarely happens. Further use helicopters to deal more damage and more importantly, make enemy forces panic which reduces their rate of fire and accuracy. This is important to keep your tanks in good condition. Cheap Helicopters such as the Cobra suffice. Reconnaissance helicopters with ATGM`s are also great to reduce the depth of the defense and keep track of enemy forces. However be careful of enemy AA units, the AI does use them sometimes in their big pushes.

I`ve been telling how to reduce the depth of the defense quite a bit now. You might be wondering why you should try to do this, when the whole point of the strategy is to bring depth to your defense. Well, you`ll soon notice in games, that the depth already will be very deep, in fact, it can stretch halfway across the very map, even to your starting location, whilst elsewhere there`s a static front with bare to no enemy action. Just leave these units there. As soon as the enemy lost all their units of their big push, you can regain your lost positions, use helicopters to scout and destroy any remaining units that previously panicked and moved back. Then you have a large area you can easily capture back and because the enemy is completely attritioned for the moment, you can gain additional ground. Turning your defense, into offensive action. If you are too slow, you`ll soon have to defend again. Also often, after a ground offensive, the enemy will go all in on helicopters.

The Leopard is the most effective tank for defense in depth duo to it`s strong armor and exceeding speed.



The Marder AA Roland is a very good NATO air defense, duo to its speed. It can also take more hits than its french counterpart. Compared to the Gepard, it has a much better range and accuracy, which means that it doesn`t need to move as much. This is important because even this unit will have to move a lot. Always keep some logistical units nearby. Most of your supply will go to your air defense and if you use infantry, to them as well. The soviet Buk might be better duo to its range.



The AMX 10 RC is a great reconnaissance vehicle because it`s fast and can deal some damage whilst being armored. However often, you might want to deactivate the weapons to keep it longer undetected. The previous vehicle in this line up is a good backup.



The VAB Mephisto is a great tank destroyer as the VAB is the fastest ground vehicle in the game. This makes the regular VAB and the similar F.uchs acceptable for infantry use. However this requires careful micro managing or you will loose your troops.



And again, the VAB, this Command Vehicle is the best for Elastic Defense. Because of it`s speed, it can hold onto territory until the last moment to give you reinforcement points for as long as possible. Because the AI can always see your command vehicles, be careful with helicopter pushes, move this unit earlier. Command helicopters also work well for this reason.



Infantry on helicopters (air assault) units with anti tank and anti air weapons can work well when carefully used. Again, in this strategy, infantry requires a lot of micro management.



This Reconnaissance Kiowa helicopter is very well suited to keep track of the big offense, as well as the scattered remains. Additionally it can take out some tanks too, it`s very precise, but requires to be restocked often. It`s ideal to support units whilst they redeploy, it can destroy a whole tank group whilst your units move, then stay to track the enemy units.

As you can see above, with this strategy you can maximize the damage dealt to the enemy, per vehicle. You can destroy entire brigades worth of enemy vehicles with no losses at all. Most of said before goes for AI helicopter pushes aswell. They are easier to deal with if you have enough AA in the rear, ready to move forward. Often, the AI has no nearby ground forces nearby you, whilst rushing with helicopters, so don`t worry about moving your AA far forward. Simultaneously move your other ground forces far back, till the helicopters are destroyed.

Lots of said here, goes against some tips for beginners, stated by other players. However this strategy is very beginner friendly. You can try this first in the Demolition Mode against easy AI. it`s very easy to win games, which will take long but it`s fun.

This Strategy applied to this game, hasn`t been tested in multiplayer, if someone could repeatedly try this against different players, and give feedback, would be very appreciated. Send me your screenshots in MP or SP and i`ll include some in this Guide, with credits, of course.

Feedback is welcome. Please mind that this strategy is taken from real life military action and theory and i applied it on this game with that in mind. I tried to find a good balance between realism and play-ability.