Destruction of the South Western Front tips

[Teo41_ITA]

Hi everyone! [:)]

I am challenging myself with the smaller scenarios before bringing on my Youtube channel the 1941 GC (impossible difficulty level).

On T1 my Luftwaffe destroyed 1313 planes on the ground at the price of 12, and my planes have now complete control of the air. On the ground, the situation turned out to be more difficult than my expectations, as the 150 morale modifier apparently gave steroids to the Soviet border troops. I did manage to open a gap through which my few Panzer divisions moved by, giving rise to the breakthrough in the direction of Rovno. The infantry of the 17th Army slowly moved towards Lvov, but failed to dislodge the enemy mechanized corps.

Now, as you can see, the Soviet AI responded superbly well to my panzer thrust, by launching several air recon missions over the area west of Rovno and then redeployed 14 divisions around my panzer divisions. Upon launching my reconnaissance missions, I could detect the insane amount of troops that you see in the screenshot below.

How am I supposed to breakthrough such a wall of units? Has anyone already beaten this scenario on the impossible difficulty?

Thank you very much for your comments!

PS: the AI in this game is by far THE BEST I've ever seen! [;)]

[loki100]

fairly general vs AI advice.

A key aspect is to give it more than one thing to worry about, a single powerful thrust will always get covered. So in the GC try to have 5 focal points in 1941 and switch between them.

Also the AI keys its deployment to what is in your front line, so setting powerful units a few hexes back can lead it to under-estimate a sector.

A basic mind set, the AI is poor at anticipation and superb at reaction (if it has a morale level over 110)

So not specific to your instance and possibly less use in the T1/2 transition but worth keeping in mind as a game develops.

[Teo41_ITA]

Thank you for your response Loki [&o]

I apologize for replying so late but I got busy with restarting the scenario from scratch. With morale level at 150, the AI is definitely superb in holding the ground (I guess it has a defensive posture thoughout 1941) and really tough to crack (I guess because of the combat bonus).


What seems to work - so far - is to slowly slowly move the infantry forward in support of the motorized/panzer divisions. As you mentioned, keeping a few reserves behind the lines does the job. Still, I am finding myself in committing 3 or 4 infantry divisions to attack one single hex, otherwise I keep wasting men and ammo for nothing and my advance is proceeding slower than my expectations [:(]

[nicks1]

Hi Teo,

You have to think about Impossible level as a completely different type of game. I have got as far as Jan '42 and fallen 10 points short of the 525 to continue (Got to Stalino but failed to take central Russia - and didn't force a surrender for Odessa). I inflicted about 3.5m casualties on USSR.

Things to understand:
- 150% morale causes Russians to be 5-10 times stronger. You can't fight your way through them.
- Look for hexes held by Brigades, those are your targets to break through. On each front on a given turn you have to find two weak points that you can get your panzers through and linked up. Russians will do limited counter attacks in first few turns, best time to do massive pockets. In my above game I had up to 90 Russian Divs at a time in pockets.
- limit the number of attacks you make. You just have to create a few holes and drive through them. You have limited supply (70%) and Russians are too strong to fight. Fighting across the front will just wear you down (in my first few attempts I ended up with Pz's at around turn 12 with 2CV). Key is to make large pockets and hold them. You have to fully link up a pock to prevent Russians escaping. Each turn you have to create a pocket on one of the fronts.
- you have to be super duper aggressive on first three turns. I take Riga, Minsk and Lvov on first turn and pocket everything inside that. I do not attack a single Div size unit on first turn. By pass and surround only.
- attack with Pz Divs only when you really have too. You will need them as strong as possible for second half of summer. Always use Inf or Mot to make breakthroughs, use Panzers to knock units out of way in rear areas to force pockets.
- pockets are really hard to breakdown. Don't bother getting rid of them unless you really have to in their first few turns. Uses up ammo, supplies and CCP and often without a surrender result. Surround with allied forces and wait for their surrender. The exemption to this the duel track rail lines. They have to be cleared.
- you have to make the AI think you are attacking everywhere. You need to threaten the AI for breakthroughs in 4-5 places. As I said, earlier you have to force Bde's to be by themselves. Only way to do that is to spread the front. In your first turn you have most of your Pz's together at the end of turn. Easy for AI to concentrate on this area.
- you have to do everything to the best you can. Logistics management, rail conversion, CCP management, off map box management. Playing against Impossible AI is a massive learning curve on getting the most out of every unit you move in a turn.
- Understand what the AI defense routines are. There are certain things that you can trigger the AI to do at different times and different places on map. AI plays the Baltic defence very differently to what happens in Ukraine. Important to understand those routines to get the most of breakthroughs.

I hope to get a game replay up at some point in the forums. I have restarted and am still stuck on turn 1 getting that right. I believe I can play the '41 game and get to 575 points and then go defensive. But winter is just so bad on impossible I am not sure I would be able to make it through until '42 summer.

[Teo41_ITA]

Thanks Nicks1!!!

Your tips are what I was looking for! I will make my best to follow your suggestion then! For sure, pocketing is what I am doing in my 3rd attempt of the scenario and yes, I am learning a lot about micromanaging every division on the battlefield!

By the way, how do you take Lvov on the first turn? At least in this scenario, I need to hope that the fortification battalion in 186, 183 does not get reinforced by the two tank divisions in the rearguard. And even if I have an odd ratio > 10:1, even by concentrating all my motorized/panzer divisions around Lvov I hardly have room to move my infantry, due to the terrain sucking away most of my MP.

EDIT: I may have found a way to take Lvov, even if this means committing all of my panzer divisions into forming that small pocket [:D]

[nicks1]

Hi Teo,

One of the key helpers is motorising Inf. This is particularly true in the South over the first three turns. In full campaign I have a set move to pocket a large section of South front. It uses 3 and 2/3 Inf units being motorised. It also requires grabbing the SS Mot Div from 2nd Pz army and two Pz Divs. I actually doubt you can do it in this scenario as there are not enough Pz divs available on first turn. Also on Turn 2 you can motorise Inf in Rumania to form a mega pocket by linking them up with a Pz breakthrough from Army Group S. I have embedded picture of my first turn of 41 campaign using combo of Motorised Inf and mech units. Again, when I get a chance I will upload a more full replay of game.

There are tricks to the trade - such as understanding you can take Lvov using just a regiment of SS mot div with over-run. You just need to zoc out all the mech and tank units in region so they don't react move to battle.

[Zovs]

Don’t forget that you pay the admin cost each turn the infantry remain motorized and it also cost +1 MP to move into and enemy controls hex in addition to the cost of the hex. See 22.2.5 (also page 259 second to last paragraph).

[nicks1]

Below I have provided what would be the ideal T2 move. Not always able to do it, depending on Russian set-up. My aim is to break front in Centre and North with centre breakthrough to link up with German inf that are moterised coming north out of Rumania. then link up the North and Centre Breakthroughs. When I have got this to work it wraps up 90% or so of the forces in front of Army Group S. If you can do this you have chance to get to Kiev by T5 or 6. Use Rumanian to wrap themselves as much of the south part of new pocket and just leave it. I use T1 to set my inf up to eliminate as far as possible pockets 1 through 5 on T2. I leave pockets 6 and 7 till later. T3 I blast pocket 7 to get hold of double track lines. I rail convert from north of Lvov to lvov and then backwards down the double line to get the double line linked on T3. Much is dependent on Russian T2 set-up. I have seen it leave a 4 hex gap in it's line against Rumania allowing a massive drive through towards Kiev and linking up with Army Group S, other times I have seen a line that needs all resources to break and no major breakout.

[nicks1]

It took me about 5 attempts to make it past T3 on impossible mode. The S in particular is just a nightmare unless you pocket a huge sum of Russians in first three turns. Then about another 5 attempts to get past T10-12. Keep trying because you start to become much, much better. Eventually I got to a game where I took Pskov T3, Tallinn T4, Kiev T5 and Smolensk T8. I still lost being 10 points shy of 525 in Jan '42, but I knew from that game it is possible. I got very bogged down in centre by misplacing a breakthrough to surround units rather than terrain and got bogged down for 4-5 weeks and didn't get to the centre cities (I only needed one of them). Also didn't take Odessa which would have gotten me there. However, even if I did make it Russians had already started to crush me in winter so overall defeat was still going to happen in '42. Against impossible you have to take cities faster than historical and destroy more of Russian army than historical to have any chance, against an army 5-10 times stronger with only 70% logistics. It is called impossible for a reason.

[nicks1]

Thanks Zovs for Mot issues. I only ever mot Inf one turn at a time (say no to keep unit mot prompt), as I don't know where I might need them next. Mot Inf are not the spear heads as they don't go far enough in, but they are great for moving far enough in to hold a pocket when mech units are limited (T1 in South is a major issue for this). Also impossible mode is only 70% AP, so I tend to only use Mot once every couple of turns when I can do something dramatic with them. Also it is very useful to break a div down and only mot one regt if that is all you need. In impossible every AP is gold and can't be wasted.

[Teo41_ITA]

Hi Nicks!

I restarted the scenario all over again, I found an easy way to take Lvov on turn 1, which however involves all my panzer and motorized divisions available on T1. I will upload the video on my Youtube channel this weekend!

[Zovs]

You can take Lvov on turn 1 with one Infantry division and then move one Panzer regiment into Lvov. You only need to break two panzer division down and that is it. Both Panzer divisions are parts of the frozen Motorized Corps. The III Motorized can be used in full force.

[Zovs]

What is nice is if your opponent (in this case I played both sides) does a forward defense like so you can then do something like this on turn 2.

[Teo41_ITA]

Thank you Zovs! I don't know how you managed to do that, but on the impossible difficulty what you achieved is simply... impossible for me! First of all, I had to be really lucky to avoid the enemy tank divisions in being committed to the initial battles (all hasty attacks to avoid the accumulation of combat delay points). Even by temporarily motorizing the 75. ID, the pincer strike from the north is always hampered by the woody terrain and I can not push further than 2 hexes. In the south, things usually develop in a more favourable situation for me.

Here below is the situation at the beginning of T2. I even tried to use the 17th Army to attack the pocket from the west but this resulted in a useless waste of ammunition and manpower. Even when encircled, the 150 morale is giving the Soviets a tremendous bonus (I have seen a defensive CV of 137.6 in one rifle division!!!). I guess I will let the AI move a bit the trapped troops and then finish them off with the Slovaks or Hungarians in the following turns.

[Zovs]

I learned a fair bit from HLYA on how to attack in the South. I have practiced moving in the South quite a bit over the last two weeks. You have to mix up your move and attack postures so you can get behind Lvov with a Panzer Regiment. I don't think on turn 1 it matters what level the AI is at for your moves and attacks.

This is from a PBEM game and the results are similar.



You can do the same thing on Hard (I am pretty sure on Impossible too, I had only two issues: not being about to attack one Soviet stack because I got a hold instead of a retreat due to morale and 1 Mountain Division escaped), but I still encircled Lvov and the units there (2 TD, 1 CD, 4 RD, 1 MTN (1 escaped), 1 SEC, 1 AT, and 2 Forts).

[Teo41_ITA]

Oh great! Maybe I just had some bad luck! I guess I will restart again from scratch this evening! ^^