Group Anders Long Long Road

[vahauser]

SPOILER ALERT

This thread contains detailed information concerning the Long Long Road to Victory Campaign.

If you are reading this and have never played Wild Bill's Long Long Road to Victory Campaign, then do not continue reading this thread.

[vahauser]

This campaign will be using SPWAW Enhanced DVRN.

Here are the handicaps I'll be placing on myself to make this campaign more challenging:

A) I cannot use airdrops. If a battle already has an airdrop planned by Wild Bill, then that airdrop is okay, but I cannot use any of my core or support units to make airdrops.

B) I cannot use airstrikes. If a battle already has an airstrike pre-planned by Wild Bill, then that airstrike is okay, but once the battle begins then I cannot use airstrikes even if Wild Bill has included air units in my force.

C) I cannot use special forces infiltration. If a battle already has an infiltration planned by Wild Bill, then that infiltration is okay, but I cannot use any of my core or support units to make infiltrations.

D) I cannot use pre-registered artillery target hexes in advance or delay battles. I can only use artillery pre-registered target hexes in assault or defend battles.

E) I cannot lay mines during any battle. If Wild Bill has already provided me with positional defenses then that is okay, but once the battle begins I may not lay any mines.

F) I cannot ever request reinforcements, even if Wild Bill has provided points for reinforcements I cannot use them.

G) Whenever possible, I cannot upgrade any unit in a formation unless all units in the formation are upgraded to the same unit type. However, some mixed formations provide exceptions. Also, Wild Bill is not always very generous in the number of build points between battles, so some exceptions might apply here as well. But the general guideline must be followed if at all possible.

H) I can only use Canadian units for both core and support forces.

[vahauser]

Here are the settings I'll be using in this campaign.

Notes:

A) C&C is ON
B) AI Level is 200
C) My spotting is reduced to 70%
D) The computer is given bonuses of 110% to Spotting, Hitting, and Rout/Rally
E) Artillery is set to 120% per the Depot Academy standard

[vahauser]

Here is my starting core:
Enhanced DVRN Country Training Ratings for Canada in November 1942 are 59exp 75mor 60ldr.

1x A0 (Colonel Anders)
3x tracked AOP
3x ammo boxes
6x jeeps
4x snipers
3x recce troops
2x engineer platoons
2x M5A1 platoons (for the engineers)
1x Ram II company, reduced (3 troops instead of normal 5)
3x 3" mortar sections
2x 25lbr sections
2x Light AAMG sections
1x Crusader I SPAA section
Total points = 2100 (86 units in 33 formations)

NOTE: The scout carriers were split out of the recce troops and formed into their own formations. This was accomplished by attaching the ammo boxes to formation A and attaching the scout carriers to the formations formerly taken by the ammo boxes.

Core Page 1:

[vahauser]

Core Page 2:

[vahauser]

Core Page 3:
Core jeeps were renamed 'Core Jeep'.

[vahauser]

Support forces for Battle #1 (700 points, all Canadian):

1x Churchill III section
3x 3" mortar sections
9x White scout cars
12x Jeeps
35x Scout patrols

[vahauser]

Battle #1
Canadian Advance vs. Vichy French Delay, near Oran Algeria
8 November 1942
Noon
Hazy Weather, Visibility 18
20 Turns
 
THE PLAN:
The map is large, so I bought a lot of recon units with my support points.  The recon units are going to push well forward of the core units and draw fire.  The core is going to advance very slowly and well behind the supporting recon units until the supporting recon units find the enemy.  However, since my core is very mobile and roads are plentiful, once the enemy has been found by my supporting recon units, then my core can rapidly move forward to engage.
 
The core has been formed into three task forces to advance along the three roads north and south of the airfield.  The two Churchill support tanks have heavy armor and I plan to use them to spearhead my main combat advance north and south of the airfield and draw fire. 
 
Once the enemy has been found, I will use mortars for supression and then move in for close combat using core units against hopefully pinned and routing and retreating enemy units.
 
My core units are initially weak (low experience) which means that I have to get in close in order to hit anything.  This means very careful coordination between core combat units and mortars is required. 
 
All the victory hexes are within a small area on the map near the airfield which means that once the main advance engages the enemy, then I can advance at a measured careful pace and still gain all the objectives in the 20 turns provided for this battle.
 
Bottom line:  support recon find enemy; mortars suppress enemy; core kills enemy; rinse and repeat for 20 turns.
 
However, since Wild Bill is well known for his devious and sneaky battle designs, then I will always have to be vigilant and ready for all sorts of nasty surprises. . .

[vahauser]

North Deployment

This is a screening and artillery force. There are no victory objectives up here, but i have a few jeeps and recon units to scout around just in case Wild Bill has planned something sneaky.

The location of the mortars and ammo is important because with Reduced Ammo ON, I might have to re-locate the ammo boxes. AA units are guarding the artillery and ammo.

[vahauser]

Center Deployment

This is the main advance force. This force is tasked with clearing the north side of the airfield and capturing most of the victory hexes. It has most of the tanks and infantry.

[vahauser]

South Deployment

This force is tasked with clearing the south side of the airfield. Once the southern victory hex is secured, then this force will protect the flank of the main advance force.

[vahauser]

Battle #1
Canadian Advance vs. Vichy French Delay, near Oran Algeria
8 November 1942
Situation at the end of Canadian Turn 1

A) The jeeps in the north drove around through the town but found nothing. Even though the town is clear now, I still have to be on guard for a Wild Bill surprise.

B) Some support scout cars and jeeps drove down the main road trying to draw fire, but nothing shot at them. They did spot two enemy ammo dumps.

C) In the south, some support jeeps drew fire from an enemy fort, which was subsequently spotted after it had fired 4 times. One of my jeeps got hit but survived. Checking the gun stats it turns out that the gun cannot penetrate the armor of the support Churchill tanks. Good news. If that is the most powerful French gun in this battle, then the Churchills will make excellent assault speahead units.

D) Artillery plotted (all with 0.4 turn delays) to hit the fort and one of the ammo dumps (the closest one).

E) Core units moving up slowly behind the Churchills.

Next Battle Report at the end of Canadian Turn 6.


Screenshot of the end of Canadian Turn 1 (main sector):

[vahauser]

Screenshot of the end of Canadian Turn 1 (south sector):

[vahauser]

Tactical Tip #1
Advancing with recon units into unknown areas and surviving.

I tend to spend a lot of my support points on recon units. My general recon-advance methodology is:

A) Send an empty jeep (or cavalry or motorcycle, etc.) as far as it will go until it gets shot at.
B) Send a second empty jeep after the first one and leap-frog the first one. The second one will now get shot at, breaking the target aquisition on the first one.
C) Leap-frog the first jeep past the second one, breaking the target lock again. Etc.
D) Once the enemy is out of shots, bring up loaded jeeps and scout cars carrying scouts and fan out into the pattern shown in the attached screenshot.
E) Unload the scouts and look around.
F) Bail out of the recon vehicles after unloading all passengers.

In the example shown in the screenshot, the enemy fort fired first when my jeep got to the hex outlined in red. By that time my jeep was traveling over 20mph down the road and the enemy shot missed. After three shots, the enemy fort was out of normal shots and then started firely sporadically using special op-fire. One of those special op-fire shots hit one of my leap-frogging jeeps but did not kill it (I got lucky). My remaining recon units were then able to take up their scouting positions in the pattern shown.

The deployment pattern I use for my scouts is important for survival. Note how all units are offset in a non-straight line three hexes away from each other. Three hexes is crucial because that is how far you need to be so that if one of your units get killed, then the # marker will not be placed on the other units in the pattern.

Also, bailing out is important if you are pretty sure that the enemy is going to shoot at you during their turn. Your vehicle crews will automatically re-crew if they aren't shot at, which means that you will be able to drive away at the start of your next turn.

The other advantage of my scouting deployment is that enemy artillery and aircraft attack in such a way that it is difficult for more than one hex in the scouting deployment to be hit by any single attack.

I push my recon hard, but not suicidally. If that first jeep had been shot at four or five times instead of just once, then I would not have continued to send scout vehicles into all that enemy fire. But I would have gained valuable information on enemy strength just the same. But since only one shot was fired, then I continued to push recon vehicles to learn as much information as I could. You must use your experience and judgment and even your gut feelings when deciding to push or not to push recon units.

Tactical screenshot #1

[Riun T]

throwing in my turn 4 to show comparable deploy and advance.

[vahauser]

Riun T,
 
Sad to say, but your campaign is NOT comparable to mine because we are using different rules with different settings and different core nations. 
 
I wanted you wait until we had the same core and the same rules and the same settings so our games WOULD be comparable.  But that didn't happen. 
 
And so now our two campaigns are not comparable.  Not even close.  Sigh. . .

[Alby]

Not to mention one of you is using Enhanced...the other is not.
[;)]
 

[DROregon]

Alby, how can you tell one is Enhanced and one is not?

[vahauser]

DROregon,
 
You can tell by the map graphics and you can tell because of the "willy meter".

[FlashfyreSP]

I can tell by the names of RiunT's units that he's not using Enhanced. [:D]