What to do with pockets?

[Franck]

Hi, I played the Netherlands scenario twice and two turns of the case white scenario. During the Netherlands scenario I always fell short by a couple of VP. So in the case white Scenario I'm wondering what I should be aiming for.

I already decided to do 3 main trust towards Warsaw (instead of trying to capture EVERYTHING but warsaw, which seems much harder). The southern trust (all those armoured division south-west and motorized corps) is already at the doorstep of Lodz (well they will make it this turn). The north-western armored groups has also made good progress encircling half of the battle group opposition them and on the verge of encircling even more unit. My northern trust also as a big pocket of enemy unit. So, this bring me to my question:

I left my infantry behind to deal with pockets of surrounded polish units. Some of them are really big and contains up to 12 polish units. These seems really hard to fight to death! I'd rather just let these units waste away by themselves, but I don't know how long this would take (or until they are not in figthing strengh anymore and they'd be easy piking). So basically, how long is it for a surrounded unit to be almost useless in combat? It is useless on the next turn? Historically, if I remember correctly the infantry cleaned the pockets after the panzers encircled an army... But I never looked at it on a day by day basis... So should I let the pocket waste away a bit before moving forward again?

You see, this is really slowing my advance on Warsaw, I need to wait for my infantry before I can attempt any more encirclement.

Thanks for your help

[Josh]

My experience with the Dutch scenario, having played it a few times as Germany (and now as the Dutch), is that because of the tight time limit it doesn't pay to conquer or destroy them all.
Keyword is speed here. Therefor push the opposing units away, race past them with your fast units, and keep the encircled units under control with *just enough* units of your own to hold them in check. I'm not familiar enough with the game to say how long it actually takes in gametime for the enemy units to wither away, but at least more than one. A turn of two, three I'd say, maybe four?
I tried to destroy all of the Dutch units, but that took too long, giving me a defeat as Germany a few times.

I haven't tried this in Poland yet though...

[Barthheart]

Most units carry enough supply to last them about 2 turns.

So on the third turn of being completely surrounded the untis start to lose their fighting ability.

As the Germans you do indeed need to be really aggressive and drive forward as fast as possible with mobile forces, using infantry as Josh says to hold open corridors and keep left behind enemy units from causing trouble.

[Redmarkus5]

Historically, particularly in Russia, the Axis really struggled to eliminate enemy pockets.  Many of them were classified as 'moving pockets' because the troops in them were marching east almost as fast as the Axis were advancing and so where they were finally destroyed was sometimes a long way from where they were first created. 

In fact, substantial numbers of men escaped these pockets and joined reforming divisions, or stayed behind and fought as partisans, so I think it makes sense that the pockets in the game are tough to crack.  Some pockets in Russia (including Axis ones) held out for many months.

[Redmarkus5]

Just an after thought.  Divisional stocks should keep a unit that's not in combat going for several weeks.  So, a pocket that's left alone should degrade quite slowly unless aggressively attacked/shelled/bombed and subjected to attrition.

[jimi3]

Just an observation on pockets and hope not a spoiler. First game. Playing Bzura my infantry was trying to close a large pocket Sochaczew-Wyzsvograd while my panzers moved east and north on Warsaw from the south. There is a victory condition for the poles to evacuate 1400 power points to the Warsaw/Modlin area (red markers)before round 11. Got Warsaw on Sept 15, but the AI knew to beat feet east towards the Kampinos Forest!!! It was close. This is a fantastic game. Easy on the outside but very deep inside. Spooky AI. Good job Vic[&o]

[D.Ilse]

I need to play this game, well tomorrow it's going on the Paypal card.

[Adam Parker]

ORIGINAL: Franck

I left my infantry behind to deal with pockets of surrounded polish units... You see, this is really slowing my advance on Warsaw, I need to wait for my infantry before I can attempt any more encirclement.

Demyansk, Cholm, Bastogne, Kiev, Tobruk...

Pockets will do that to ya [;)]