Amazed at the german invasion response

[ratprince]

So I just did a brittany invasion

I prepped it with massive recon and infrastructure bombardments wrecking all the railyards and putting hideous amounts of interdiction

I landed with 14 infantry divisions and 2 brigades and 8 units of paratroopers. Made it ashore no problem only forts in the way...

Mind you there were NO Axis units...ZERO...within about six hexes of the landing zone and ALL the railyards were wrecked....

On my next turn they somhoew collapsed one beachead, routed a couple para units and I counted 28 divisions and 16 regiments surrounding my beachheads.... all in seeemingly magically appearing level 1 and 2 forts......

Insane...... Also mind you I used EVERY SINGLE plane in england the turn of the invasion for ground strikes and interdiction in about a 20 hex radius of my landing points.... Nothing should have made it anywhere near the beach head...let alone attack me...

Guess we should only be playing humans...?

[MisterBoats]

I had almost exactly the same result in the same place. It was a major WTF? moment. All of the interdiction coverage seemed to have no effect on enemy movements.

[ratprince]

It could not possibly had any effect.

There was not a functioning railhead within 150 miles of Brest.... And they couldnt have walked that far and attacked. Oh, and I have wrecked to near 100 percent every oil well and fuel source .... I was like "HOW?"

I mean I literally landed with every possible thing I could from the med and the Uk. 8 TFQ fleets and every plane possible.... simply a ridiculous response. I mean I had like four times Dday....didnt seem to phase them...

[Fallschirmjager]

Not to get this thread off track. This sounds like an issue and should be looked at.

But how did you get 14 divisions + 2 brigades on shore?
The Allies never had near that kind of capability.
And by 8 units of paratroopers do you mean 8 regiments?

Operation Husky was the largest amphibious operation of the war and stretched allied shipping to the breaking point. 14 divisions plus support would be impossible. I see that as an issue that needs to be addressed as well.

Not only could that kind of force never be landed, but supplying it would have been simply not possible. You would need three good size ports running at 100% to be able to supply that kind of force.

The issue of the German response is an issue. But if the Allies are able to land that kind of force it is also an issue.
If the Allies are ever able to put that many men into an invasion force then it should quickly lose combat power due to burning through it's supply in 1 turn.

[ratprince]

I used all eight amphib units. I had 14 divs plus 2 brigades stacked with them

I used EVERY paratroop unit at my disposal which was 4 divisions and 4 brigade/regiments maybe another regiment in there too..cant remember.

I captured alevel two port east of Brest with direct amphib assault and then had the 8 temporary ports of the amphibs. Two get turned into level 4 mulberrys.

If I would have only landed a DDAY style invasion with four or so divisions, it would have simply evaporated.... I mean, there were instantly 6 panzer divisions around my beach heads attacking me. Plus another 20 or so divs and 14 or so smaller formations. And somehow in level 2 forts...????

After a month of feeding troops in and punching little one hex holes, I have expanded the beachhead somewhat, but this is open terrain and somehow they are always in a level 2 fort? Its impossible, or a helper for the ai...

And literally every aircraft was involved....not some..not half...EVERY plane in england was interdicting, bombing railways, railyards....etc..etc.. didnt do a thing. 40 axis units appeared around the beaches... Frustrating as heck when I figured I have a force of over 200,000 men and 6000 tanks pouring out....

Whether it was possible for the allies...dunno. If that needs looked at too. But as it is, versus the AI, if you dont land with that size force, its...gone.

As an aside, I have not had any supply problem. All units are getting full supply or close. HOwever,all of them are less than two or three hexes from ports.

[MisterBoats]

FJ,

In real life, did we not have nearly as many divisions in Normandy in the same time frame? I'll have to check, but I think there were at least ten divisions ashore by June 13th, along with armored brigades. In my WITW Brittany invasion I think I had 5 amphib. TFs (for Utah, Omaha, Gold, Sword and Juno) along the north coast. Three airborne drops, of which one was routed. The Germans immediately hemmed me in with probably 20+ divisions in good order/strength, despite heavy preparatory interdiction coverage.

[Joel Billings]

Do you have the auto save from the start of the German turn when you invaded? I'd like to see how those units got there. Please post it here or email it to 2by3@2by3games.com. This goes for any situation where people think the AI did something that was clearly impossible.

As for shipping capacity, having a save from the start of the turn you gave the invasion orders would give me an idea of what kind of capacity you had and how much you were using.

[Fallschirmjager]

ORIGINAL: MisterBoats

FJ,

In real life, did we not have nearly as many divisions in Normandy in the same time frame? I'll have to check, but I think there were at least ten divisions ashore by June 13th, along with armored brigades. In my WITW Brittany invasion I think I had 5 amphib. TFs (for Utah, Omaha, Gold, Sword and Juno) along the north coast. Three airborne drops, of which one was routed. The Germans immediately hemmed me in with probably 20+ divisions in good order/strength, despite heavy preparatory interdiction coverage.

I count 9 plus attachments by June 15th.

What also may need to be looked at is the German propensity for destruction. In almost every port they left, it was so thoroughly wrecked as to be unusable for weeks/months.

Both issues sound serious. And I do not want to get this thread off topic. But I have a very hard time with 14 invasion divisions. There was simply no way in real life for that to occur given the constraints in shipping that bedeviled the Allies the entire war.
The war would probably had ended a year sooner had the Allies simply had enough freight/troop ships to go around.

[HMSWarspite]

Is it an issue with (in effect) using all shipping in the Channel? If you move all Amphibs to UK, and then use all supporting shipping to move invasion forces plus follow ups to make 14 Div, wat has heppend to supply shipping inthe Med. In other words is it physically possible but not realisitic? Would need to see supply shipments to Italy to see...

Port destruction has been pretty severe to me so far... is this an outlier or 'usual'?

[ratprince]

ill send the saves Joel

Thanks for looking.

I mean, I know the AI needs a boost, but it defeats the purpose of doing all the prep work with the airforce if they ignore all the effects. And really takes a lot of the fun away. I spent twenty or so turns doing no ground combat...just waiting for good weather and prep points...using air judiciously...then, no effect....

[patchogue]

Did you recon anywhere else? Does the AI pay attention to invasion prep? If so, won't it have moved troops closer...but out of range of the preliminary raids? Still surprised it could move quickly through local interdiction. Mind you it has an incredibly good bug out capability.

[ratprince]

I reconned the heck out of the area and a twenty hex radius. There was maybe three UNITS in the area besides forts. In one turn 40 showed up. I had such high interdcition surrounding the area that I was whacking units with kills of armor infantry and guns.

I do believe the AI KNOWS when you target a location to be invasded. They shift units the turn after you select a target area.

Based on the movement points required to go through such high interdiction areas, even with 50 max MPs, it is impossible for 6 panzer divisions to have arrived at the beach head and done a deliberate attack. Just not possible with the standard rules the human abides by.

[RedLancer]

The AI doesn't know but it does instinctively understand what can be moved to where in the best manner possible. The AI does have advantages: but necessarily so otherwise it would be a lousy opponent. Humans have no advantages but are more creative.

[ratprince]

What does "instinctively" mean in regards to the AI? Sorry, that seems counter intuitive..

[RedLancer]

The game is just complicated maths - other than those parts with die rolls - the AI can check the impact of a choice in microseconds before making a move where we would have to think for much longer.

[Belphegor]

ORIGINAL: mike mcmann


Guess we should only be playing humans...?

Playing a human won't change the results much. Pelton didn't waste any time ganging up on me. I'm ashore, and intend on staying there but it's going to be a tough fight for a while. My recce could have been better but I didn't detect many of these units. My point is that it's likely possible.

[ratprince]

Ill give that the recon may not be 100 percent. The issue is the move interdict. I mean, they should be able to move about a max of 16 hexes if fully up. Subtract for the interdiction and only units within about 4 or five hexes should be able to even get to the beach head let alone deliberate attack....

[GrumpyMel]

ORIGINAL: Red Lancer

The AI doesn't know but it does instinctively understand what can be moved to where in the best manner possible. The AI does have advantages: but necessarily so otherwise it would be a lousy opponent. Humans have no advantages but are more creative.

Does the AI have to adhere to the same movement restrictions/rules as the player? I'm going only on pure anecdote from my own game (which is only in Italy so far) so I could be completely off-base.... but I get the distinct impression that often (though clearly not always) it is simply teleporting units around the map without actualy having to move through the hex's in between, as a player would.

[JeffroK]

Maybe the problem is that they are 1 week turns, someone will prove they could have railed a Panzer Div from the East Front in that time scale. (IMVHO this is a failing of games at this scale, you need a finer scale for MW Europe than you would for the East Front)

Whats missing from the game, some resistance based recce which would have helped ID any formations in the area, FORTITUDE which should see a lot of German Formations tied to the Pas de Calais a bit longer........

Belphegor's example isnt relevant, he probably attacked the centre of the defnces, not the outside edge.

AI is always hard to balance, they may test the stuffings out of it but when they let real humans loose on it sometimes odd reactions can occur.

[Belphegor]

ORIGINAL: JeffK



Belphegor's example isnt relevant, he probably attacked the centre of the defnces, not the outside edge.

Fair point. My recce showed there wasn't a better place anywhere really. I did concentrate my interdiction on a much smalller area. If the issue is could the units get there I still think they could. I'm more worried about their ability to attack once making the journey.